How can I champion you if I’m this insecure about me? (Part 2)

People are hard. I’ll be the first to say it. We all come from different backgrounds, cultures, and personalities. Yet in spite of everything fighting to keep us from loving one another well, that’s exactly what Jesus calls us, and empowers us, to do.

But how easy is it to become so entrenched in “bringing our own hot mess back to a place of self-assurance,” as I mentioned in the first post, that we can’t truly be there to empower and champion those around us?

When we take our eyes off of ourselves and onto Him, we start to see how He sees. We start to see others more instead of constantly trying to come to our own personal identity rescue.

Once my identity, my security, my confidence is in Jesus and who He made me to be, THEN I can start truly loving, championing, and encouraging others.

So… what does this look like practically?

Here are three ways we can start to live this out!

Secure enough in Christ to value others’ opinions:

This obviously doesn’t mean we have to agree with every opinion out there, but it does mean we can hear people out without automatically getting defensive. I think one of the easiest examples here is in how we deal with differing political opinions (and I’m just as guilty as the next person). It seems there has been a shift in the American Church’s theology, where we have begun to lean on our government as savior rather than acknowledging Jesus as the only One who saves.

So now, whenever someone has a different opinion than us, we lose it (often all over Facebook). It’s almost as if we say, “If you attack that, then you attack me.” I think if we started to identify more with the cross than, say, with the donkey or elephant, our attitudes toward one another would change. What if instead I could confidently say “yes, I hold these views, but it’s not ultimately who I am; therefore, I’m secure enough to dialogue with you”? I’m starting to see that Jesus is pretty good at defending Himself without us going off on someone’s post (once again, guilty).

Take the Black Lives Matter movement. This may ruffle some feathers, but maybe before we picked up our All Lives Matter banners in protest, we stopped to listen to the stories and wounds behind the lifted fists. What if we, as followers of Christ, were known more for sitting with the misunderstood, downtrodden, and outcasts than we were for pointing our fingers at them?

The more I read the gospels, the more I see Jesus giving a voice to the voiceless, eating with the best of sinners, and befriending those the religious looked down upon. I think our Christian culture has so veered away from loving and clung instead to the fear of losing that we forget what Jesus’ life truly looked like.

Could we let ourselves “lose” and still be ok? Jesus did, and in turn gained everything. Christ won the ultimate victory, and if my identity is secure in that… well, I think I might allow myself to start losing a lot more for the sake of others.

Secure enough in Christ to value others’ giftings:

How often can we hear sermons on 1 Corinthians 12 or Ephesians 4 over people’s different giftings and vigorously nod our heads, recognizing that believers all desperately need one another to build up the Church and make disciples of all nations?

But then we get into the trenches of real life. We look around us in envy, saying I should be or wish I could be more like him, or more like her.

Maybe it’s the perfectionism in me, or maybe it’s downright sinful comparison, but so often I find myself being consumed with how I measure up to others. “I could never speak in public so confidently like him.” Or “I wish I could share the Gospel so eloquently like her.” “I could never write like that, or cook and host like that, or be perfectly organized like that, or parent like that…”

And you know what that kind of thinking tends to do? Render me afraid and completely useless to how God wants to intentionally use Jessica… not him or her.

In his Purpose Driven Life book, Rick Warren comments on this comparison state of mind, saying, “We want to have it all and do it all, and we become upset when it doesn’t happen. Then when we notice that God gave others characteristics we don’t have, we respond with envy, jealousy, and self-pity.”

To bring us full circle to those truths found in the primary “giftings” passages, we have to continuously remind ourselves that God purposefully made someone better than you at this and that! “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be” (1 Corinthians 12:17-18). He was purposeful when He gave you your giftings, and also when He game them theirs.

Friends, the Church and the world are missing out on what we have to offer for the sake of the gospel when we try to be someone God did not create us to be. Learn and grow from others, yes, but I beg you: don’t try to be them. I need you to be you, just as God created you to be.

Secure enough in Christ to value others’ accomplishments/victories:

Oh man, how many times do I say that I am happy for someone winning an award, or being praised by someone in leadership, when in fact I’m just trying to will myself to a point of complete unselfishness, when I really just want to be acknowledged for what I’m doing, too…?

Let’s take the story of the little Jewish servant girl in 2 Kings 5. The reference doesn’t ring a bell? It didn’t for me at first, either. But this girl causes a man’s life to be completely changed because of her simple, and barely mentioned, faith in the power of her God. She had been captured and taken away from her family by the Syrians, yet it was she who lovingly pointed the leprous Naaman to seek out the prophet Elisha in order to be healed. And healed he was.

Yet she is hardly spoken of in Scripture. Does this mean she is any less important in the Lord’s eyes than say, the little Jewish girl named Esther who was appointed Queen and eventually saved her people from mass genocide? I think we know the correct answer here. But do we honestly enjoy reading of the nameless slave’s step of faith to save her one captor over the ten chapters given to a beautiful queen who saves millions?

I say this because our world, and in turn us, tend to glorify those in the spotlight, or those seeming to accomplish huge things in the world’s eyes (like Esther). The little, everyday moments of obedience (like the servant girl) get overlooked and, therefore, not sought after in our own lives. We want Esther opportunities but don’t want to go through servant moments of faith and surrender beforehand. And then we get jealous when others get the crown and we’re left still feeling enslaved.

I mean, we don’t hear an audience clapping for us as we pray over our friends while we do the dishes. We don’t often post on social media pictures of our seemingly monotonous days filled with crying out to Jesus over our sin, or calling a friend to check on and encourage her, or opening our Bibles again and again and again even when we don’t feel like it. But then we get on social media and wish we could be doing what Suzie Q is doing… Or get jealous of good ole’ John Doe going on another vacation… Oh and don’t forget about Sammy Smith losing even more weight or getting another personal record in fitness.

However, we have to recognize that this is all just misplaced glorification and security, yet we hardly ever acknowledge it as such! I know I sure don’t. I’m so often not secure enough in the season God has asked me to be in, or the few relationships He has asked me to steward well, that I can’t even be truly happy for my friends when something amazing happens to them. And let me tell you, there is absolutely no freedom in that way of thinking.

Jesus saw the obedient servant girl. He also saw Esther. But he sees you, too. And He is asking you to seek Him and find your security fully in Him, and only then can you love and celebrate others the way He intended.

So in fact, you can intently listen to her as she spouts off about her differing political opinions, and believe it or not you can be excited when his gifts are publicly praised while you continue in quiet and unacknowledged obedience. Because you can be confident that as you let Him, God is using you right. where. you. are, just as you were made to be.

We are good enough not because of our right opinions, our perfect gifts, or our praised accomplishments. We are good enough because we have been covered by the perfect blood of Jesus, and in that we can celebrate. And through that confidence, we can in turn celebrate and champion others.

Humbly yours,