Читать книгу White Stars With Glimmers of Blue: Treasuring the Greatness of Jesus By Fighting the Hidden Insecurity - Reyshawn Boone's Bobo - Страница 5

It was my dream, ever since my clumsy days of elementary school, to play for the National Football League (NFL). Playing tackle football in the street, watching the Green Bay Packers, and roughhousing with my brothers created in me a desire to be in the NFL. With my college graduation ceremony right around the corner, I needed to decide if I wanted to continue on to a professional football career.

I knew that a football career with the NFL would permit me to stand out, and be seen on television. I knew that a NFL career would project me to the front of my class at Montana State University (MSU), as not many players from MSU go to the NFL. There is a lot of training, money, and time that has to be invested to reach a professional level. But the investments were not the primary difficulties in my decision.

Like any athlete, or any person for that matter, once in a while I can psych myself up to pursue a longing for something that I have always wanted, like going to the NFL. So I pursued the NFL, right? Wrong. In the moments of decision, dabbles of insecurities began to infiltrate my mind. I thought to myself, there is at least one six-foot-two, 235-pound defensive end at each school in the US, what makes me any different? I am not. If I do get to the NFL, there is a good chance that I would not be able to maintain what is asked of me. There is no way a NFL team would pick me before so many other capable athletes who bench more or run swifter than I. No way am I good enough or will ever be good enough.

The pressure and scrutiny I put myself under was a weight I could not bear. This was my opportunity to be propelled into fulfilling an ambition that would have at least given me the sense that I was accomplished—but instead I was swallowed up in the belly of the insecurity of greatness.

I was surprised by the shame I felt in these moments, because I was so accustomed to glossing over such feelings with good self-talk. Growing up in my family, we did not process the detailed characteristics of any type of insecurity. My parents without question gave my siblings and me valuable insight on many aspects of our life, like faith in God and our relationships with the opposite sex. And still, I can count on one hand the number of times the word “insecurity” was mentioned amongst my family. I cannot remember when the word seeped into my vocabulary, perhaps a book I read, by a friend, or a sermon I listened to. At any rate, whenever I had it, I never stopped thinking about it.

As I now diagnose the experiences of my childhood, I can conclude that the topic of insecurities rarely came up in our family because we seemed to naturally know how to be good self-motivators. If we were kicked down by some financial setback or unforeseen family conflict, we did not stay down. When my brother or I made a mistake in our flag football game, we both knew how to layer our mistakes with good self-talk. We were the self-motivators, and as a result, I turned out to be a “good” self-motivator, who was detached from the truth about insecurities.

It is like insecurities are playing a cruel game of hide-and-seek. You remember how hide-and-seek worked when you were a kid? I remember all too vividly. It was always that one boy who had the best hiding spot. He hid for hours and hours until everyone gave up looking for him, and he was forced to reveal himself out of sheer boredom. But when he revealed himself, like the sneaky person he was, he never told anyone (me) where his hiding spot was for fear that his “perfect spot” will be taken. I was never the best hider, so I just hated playing with this kind of kid.

Insecurities are frustrating—just like this kid. We never know where they are hiding, and we give up too soon searching. I know I speak of insecurities as if it were a person or a thing that comes to and fro at will, but I am not crazy. I know that insecurities are emotional and mental facets in our lives. But I figure they are just as real as a person, yet mysteriously hidden. That is the first of three things that we need to know.

The three things we need to know about insecurities are: 1. Insecurities hide. 2. They are hard to admit. 3. They are daunting to fight against.

Before we look at how God responds to people, how others are affected, and how Jesus is treasured less as a result of this insecurity, we need to see how these three deterrents create obstacles. Those will be further fleshed out in this chapter.

INSECURITIES HIDE

We may not think of ourselves as insecure, or believe our insecurities are enough to matter, but we fall victim to insecurities all the time. If it is hiding and we choose not to seek it out, how then will we see how insecurity keeps us from treasuring Jesus the way He is meant to be treasured? Have we all reached the stage in our walk with God where we need not worry about treasuring Jesus? Such thinking would be the opposite of the way Paul lived. “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” (Philippians 3:12)

For those who are not aware of the plight of insecurities, I know what it is like to have no clue that you deal with them. Before writing this book, when I would get up in the morning to brush my teeth, I never looked in the mirror and said, “Reyshawn, why do you feel like you have to be the greatest in order to be loved?” Number one, that sounds super corny to ask yourself in the mirror, and number two, it takes time to even have thought about a question like that. I ask myself a similar question to that now, though, in many situations I encounter, because this concern is a testament to the tremendous things God has been working in me since I began writing.

Insecurities are usually discovered in a new or hard circumstance. What is a common way some people respond to something new or hard and experience insecurity, but do not think of it is an insecurity? I have mentored, coached, and counseled many students at Montana State University for two years and the University of Washington for a year and a half. I have been out of the country twice, visiting college campuses, sharing the gospel, and coaching them on how to do the same. In my experience, I have noticed some things college-age people have in common, however it can certainly be true of people of all ages.

When something new or hard is upon us and we encounter the feeling of shame, we often pretend there is no shame and blame ourselves for not working hard enough. Saying things like, “I should have been prepared for this. I have to keep getting better.” Instead of seeing shame, guilt, and self-inadequacy, we slap insecurities down and layer it with mottos of, “Work harder” and “Don’t reflect just succeed.”

In my experience I have seen a plethora of scenarios where “not being good enough” at something is associated with weakness. Hence, many avoid thinking about insecurities, saying, “Oh, it is not a big deal. Stuff happens, right? There is no point in me thinking about it.” To them this sounds noble, and on the outside it may look like perseverance. The insecurity is usually later confirmed as I get to know the person and the person’s unique upbringing.

I have also found out, firsthand, that people that I encounter outside of my immediate friends, often link insecurities to appearance. If you look confident and or act confident, no one will think of you as insecure. In other words, if you are shy and quiet, you are deemed insecure. So if you are quiet, you better watch out before the undercover police of insecurity profile you.

There was one day when I went to a book store to buy a book to do research on this topic. As I walked up to the cash register and handed the clerk the book, she noticed that it had the word “Insecurities” on it. She asked, “Is this book for you or someone else?”

I smiled. She smiled back curiously and said, “Well I guess I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I guess anyone can be insecure right?” And right she was, because insecurity is my fight even if it is no one else’s. Not only was I shocked to realize this insecurity existed in me, but it is shocking news now to most people when I tell them that I have feelings of “not being good enough,” or that I fear being discovered as “ inadequate.” The responses people usually give me are like what the young woman in the bookstore gave me.

To look at it in another way: our insecurities hide behind our disregard of the terrible workings of our flesh. Or to say it this way: insecurities hide behind the deception of our own innocence as our minds bypass the true desires of our sinful nature. Sometimes we think that our inclinations are that of a newborn baby—innocent, unknowing, and filled with cuteness. We’d like to assume that our desire, be it love, acceptance, or to be noticed, is only a minor request. We may say, “I only just want to feel loved. Is being loved hard to ask for?” True, the aim is just one measly “little thing,” but, then again, the means by which we think we can receive this measly “little thing” are very troublesome.

The apostle Paul is our example of what true self-awareness looks like in relation to how God paints it. “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out…So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am.” (Romans 7:18, 21–24)

From these verses we understand that our innocence means nothing. Paul says that there is a war going on inside of him—war against good and evil, right and wrong, treasuring Jesus and feeding the sinful nature. This insecurity of greatness is a strategy employed by the enemy, who is Satan, who loves nothing more than to ensure sure you need not worry about such an insecurity as this.

Finally, insecurities hide because we only see that which God allows us to see. I cannot rightfully presume that God has revealed that we all have an insecurity of needing greatness for the sake of love. God has certainly embedded this unbelievably profound truth in my heart, and I have spent countless hours researching and thinking through the details that will help you make this crucial discovery as well. However, God must reveal this to you.

I am praying with all my heart that it will be in the process of reading this book that you will make this crucial discovery. I am hopeful that God is doing miraculous things in your heart right now. But it must be at the appointed time that God deems necessary. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29) The secret things of scriptures are not mine or yours; they are God’s.

THEY ARE HARD TO ADMIT

Insecurities are hard to admit. The reasons insecurities, and this one of greatness in particular, are hard to admit, is because to admit having insecurities means that we would have to admit something is wrong with ourselves. To admit we have insecurities means to confess something that is true about us that we presumed not to be true. To say you are insecure about not being the greatest, you would have to admit you actually wanted greatness. One would have to admit the impulses and the decisions that were previously made had the aroma of wanting greatness for the sake of approval. And this is difficult, because it may make you look foolish in the face of your family and friends.

I have perceived it to be like jumping off a diving board into a pile of horse dung. After you get up, you smell like crap. The people don’t want to be around you, because you smell like crap. I see it like this all the time. For instance, many college-age men I encounter rarely admit to the women that they are pursuing or dating, “Sometimes I have a fear of leading because I fear that I will lead in the wrong direction.”

Women consider the question Beth Moore used in her book, So long Insecurities, “What if you are single and there is not a man on the horizon you want to take home to daddy? Can you honestly say that a man does not give validity to our womanhood?” Can you?

What are a few other circumstances where it would be hard for a person to admit insecurities? It is like a man who feels ready to be a husband, but then is faced with circumstances in the marriage that call attention to his weaknesses. Or it like a high school student who graduated high with all A’s, but in college feels like the dumbest person in the world once he or she gets a C on final exam, or like a business student who excelled in academics in undergraduate and graduate school. However, that person is later overcome with thoughts of insufficiency as they graduate and step into the threshold of the “real world.”

Robb Willer, a sociology professor at Berkeley, conducted a study on “masculinity overcompensation.” The study included 111 college-age male participants. In the study he found that “Masculinity-threatened men reported feeling ashamed, guilty, upset, and hostile more often than did masculinity-confirmed men.”

The study confirms my belief. I honestly believe that when there is a weakness that threatens masculinity, men present themselves as overly confident so no one suspects they are weak, while others revert to crawling away and hiding for fear of being discovered as weak.

Admitting shame, which is a trait of insecurity, can be painful, as I have seen, because a person does not want to dwell on how they have let down their parents, grandparents or peers. They may say things like, “I am just in waiting for my opportunity to be noticed by such and such a company.” Or they may say, “I am not insecure, I just need to get over this hump then I will be okay.”

In a late article in Psychology Today, there were some very striking finds about the insecurity of businessmen and women. This question was asked of over one hundred adults in their early twenties: “Do you think you’ll do better than your parents?” or a slightly different version: “Do you still believe in the American Dream?” the majority of the young adults said, “absolutely.”

But when asked about their own experience, their parents’ experience, when presented with the fact that this generation is not as socially mobile (meaning education) as their parents, and that it’s harder to be upwardly mobile in this country than in many European countries, one person replied this way, “You know, I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but I’m worried that I won’t do as well as my parents.” One young woman, who grew up on the Main Line in Philadelphia, was nearly distraught at the prospect that she would not be able to give her kids the same lifestyle she had when growing up.

What this study shows is that we are face to face with new, hard, or difficult circumstances that make us feel shame. For some, there may be shame because the dreams of success are not looking as promising as originally foreseen. For others, there may be shame at the thought of not providing for a family. For these reasons, and so many others, insecurities are hard to admit. We can keep pretending there is no shame; but if we do, we unknowingly abandon our hope for the grace of God to comfort us when we need comfort.

A verse in 2 Thessalonians reminds us of this by saying, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word (2:16-17). This passage tells us that our eternal comfort and good help come through grace.

Indeed insecurities are hard to admit; but ironically, admitting you are insecure begets the process of stripping away who we know ourselves to be and allows our minds to receive the much-needed grace of God. Martin Luther said, “A man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.”

John Bunyan, an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim’s Progress, once said: “Grace can pardon our ungodliness and justify us with Christ’s righteousness; it can put the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us; it can help us when we are down; it can heal us when we are wounded; it can multiply pardons, as we through frailty multiply transgressions.”

What keeps you from admitting insecurities? We need God’s comfort so much more than we know, and most times we have to be real frank with God. We just need to say something as simple as, “I am insecure.” We need God’s grace so much more than we ask. We need God’s healing power even when we try to shield ourselves from Him the most with our many transgressions.

THEY ARE DAUNTING TO FIGHT AGAINST

Can you remember how you have fought insecurities in the past? I want to guess that whatever the method was, it either worked sometimes or it did not work at all. This is my hypothesis because I come to understand in many ways, and not just my own life, that insecurities are daunting to fight against. Insecurities are daunting to fight against, but they must be fought against for the treasuring of Christ.

It is hard to know what to do with insecurities when you approach something new, different, or hard. There are many ways people think about it. What do you do? Do you gut it out? Do you go to therapy? Do you keep encouraging yourself? Do you bank on people encouraging you? Do you hope in the day that you will be one hundred percent confident? Should you use medication?

There are some ways that I have fought insecurities, before writing this book. It included relying on encouragement from people close to me. I relied on it because it made me feel good when I was low. It made me feel happy when my heart was like the Seattle sky: gray and foggy. People would tell me, “Reyshawn you are good at this,” or “You are a good-looking guy,” or “I really enjoy the poetry you write.” Someone could tell me how great I am a thousand times; nevertheless I, after a while, would deny the encouragement’s penetration to my heart a thousand times. This stopped working because I did not believe what was said.

I also tried to fight my insecurities by pushing and pressing into a situation, looking past my insecurities and taking risks. Like the Little Engine that Could, I would coach myself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Whenever I had enough foreknowledge of the problem I was taking on, it was not at all troublesome to get through the pain without any need of encouragement. Yet, when I had no idea that I was insecure about something so small, like forgetting an appointment, I would swell up with insecurities saying, “Why did I forget that appointment? I am always forgetting stuff like this. I hate this quality about me.”

For others, fighting insecurities are little bit more daunting. There was a girl who wrote on a blog post on Oprah.com for help with processing insecurities. My heart crumbled at her words, as she wrote in expressing her daunting fight with insecurities:

“I have always felt ashamed and embarrassed. I have been in therapy, and still I cannot let this go. I have been married for almost twenty years and have two beautiful children. My hubby is my best friend. He gets hurt and frustrated because I feel this way. I feel as if one day he will ‘wake up’ and see the real me and leave me like so many have before. I have tried to break this train of thought, but it scares me how much easier it is to have negative thoughts instead of positive ones. I know I am smart, caring, and a really kind and loving person. My whole life I have struggled with this. When I walk into a room, I see people staring and doing double-takes. (You’d think I have three heads.) People often feel they have the right to inquire about why I look this way. Telling them only confirms how ashamed I already feel about myself—it’s a catch-22. How do I win?”

This lady had been to therapy and tried to muster up the know-how to think “happy thoughts.” She possibly thought getting married and having kids would just melt the insecurities away. It clearly did not for her. It is unbelievably hard to fight insecurities, because we do not know what to do when shame is on us. Though this lady has seen no hope, she still asks the right question, “How do I win?” This is the question everyone asks. But how we will define winning is not rooted in us hoping to be more self-confident or having a more successful looking life.