Tag Archives: insecurity

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With God–Part 2

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With God--Part 2

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With Him–Part 2

Last week I started a reply to comment that I received on a previous post, “How to Overcome Feeling Unloved or Unwanted”. I shared that learning to recognize God’s love is a process that takes time and starts with building a relationship with God. This week I’d like to finish up my reply by giving the intentional steps that we need to take in order to build our relationship with God and to learn how to feel God’s love. I will give more details on what more is needed besides attending a getaway, retreat or conference in order to have lasting healing and success.

Reader’s Comment:

“I’m 59, and to this day still feel unloved. I believe what you say about God’s love for us. I can’t seem to sit and really spend time with him. I do talk to Him all day here and there. I know in my mind He loves me but the rest of me doesn’t. I’m so insure from lack of feeling love I push people away. I hate it. I have five kids whom I love so much along with 9 grandkids. At this point I prefer to be dead, but I don’t want to give up. I want to know true love (not from a man at this point divorced twice) and happiness here on earth before I die. Are there places to go for a week or 2 for adults to get away and have bible studies or spiritual help?”

Previously I addressed that there’s a need for some emotional and spiritual healing to take place. I gave an analogy of a broken arm and how a cast (like a retreat or a conference) is the start of the healing process, but more healing needs to take place on the inside by taking some steps on purpose to have lasting, long-term recovery. I mentioned that the 4-step Formula for Success would be beneficial in this process. The formula consists of learning, taking action, using persistence, and make sure we have support.

Build relationship with God: learn, take action, use persistence & make sure you have support.

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Take Some Practical Steps to Build Your Relationship With God:

Learn

The first step we need to intentionally take to build our relationship with God (and to learn to recognize God’s love by spending time with him) is to learn about him. There are several ways to do this. Continue reading →

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With Him–Part 1

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Learn how to start Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With Him--Part 1

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With Him–Part 1

**Read Part 2 here

With any relationship, you need to build it by spending time with one another and learning more about each other. This is how love grows. Our relationship with God is no different. We need to spend time with him and learn about him in order to cultivate and grow love in that relationship. It’s also a process that doesn’t happen overnight or even in a week.

This week’s post is another response to a comment that I received on a previous post, “How to Overcome Feeling Unloved or Unwanted”. Some responses just take more than a quick reply if I’m doing them justice. My prayer is that I can give this hurting person some hope and guidance to further recognize God’s love by learning how to build relationship with him.

Reader’s Comment:

Quick answer…

As a quick answer to the question asked about getaways for bible studies and spiritual help… Continue reading →

Overcome Insecurity Caused by a Tragic Circumstance or Incident

Sadly many of us have had the misfortune of dealing with a tragic circumstance or incident in our lives which can lead to insecurities and affect our self-esteem and self-worth. Painful and traumatic experiences can affect our identity and how we view ourselves. Tamar in the bible had to deal with a tragic circumstance of being raped by her half-brother, Amnon, and she felt shame and lived in desolation thereafter.

“But Amnon wouldn’t listen to her, and since he was stronger than she was, he raped her … But now Tamar tore her robe and put ashes on her head. And then, with her face in her hands, she went away crying … so Tamar lived as a desolate woman in her brother Absalom’s house.” 2 Samuel 13:14, 19, 20b (NLT)

There are a variety of traumatic experiences that could affect our perceived worth and value. Death is a tragic circumstance that can sometimes cause low self-esteem. When we lose someone close to us, we not only lose that person but we lose the role that we played with that person which can sometimes affect our self-worth. We could potentially have feelings of insignificance, uncertainty, vulnerability, fear of the future, feeling of no longer being needed, etc. These same types of feelings can accompany a divorce (a death of sorts) and even a traumatic health problem or injury (cancer, debilitating injury, etc.) in addition to insecurities about appearances if they have been altered in any way. God HATES death and sickness and the pain and negative side effects that accompany them. God wants to set us free from these and heal us (physically and emotionally).

“And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15:26 (NLT)

“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:4-5 (NIV)

Abuse (emotional, physical or sexual) is a tragic circumstance that can make us feel like we have little value. It can lead to feelings that we are “damaged goods” or guilt that maybe we deserved the abuse somehow. Many people that have suffered abuse start to believe the lie that they are worthless and aren’t deserving of love and affection. God HATES abuse. He wants to protect and avenge us from this.

“The LORD examines both the righteous and the wicked. He hates those who love violence.” Psalm 11:5 (NLT)

Infidelity (emotional, physical, or pornographic) is definitely a tragic circumstance that affects one’s self-esteem and one’s worth and value. Often those on the receiving end of infidelity feel that if they were “enough” then the infidelity wouldn’t have happened. This can lead to feelings of being unloved or unwanted as well as leading to comparisons with the other person(s) involved (i.e. affair partners or pornographic images). The unfaithful person also struggles with negative feelings—especially guilt and a low sense of self-worth because of the pain that they have caused their loved one. God HATES infidelity and the pain of the aftermath that it causes. He wants to restore and heal people in these situations.

“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” Hebrews 13:4 (NIV)

“But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:28 (NLT)

I’m sure there are many, many other examples of traumatic incidents that lead to insecurity other than the few examples I’ve given here. Ultimately God hates them all. He wants to free us from the pain that they cause. He wants us to see ourselves the way HE sees us and get an accurate view of our self-worth and value.

God wants us to see ourselves the way HE sees us & get an accurate view of our self-worth.

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If you are a victim of a tragic circumstance, God wants you to know: Continue reading →

Feeling Rejected? Shake That Dirt Off Your Sandal

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Feeling Rejected? Shake That Dirt Off Your Sandal

We’ve been talking a lot lately about insecurities. For most people it’s an ongoing struggle, myself included. Even though I’ve grown tremendously in knowing my value and my worth and seeing myself the way God sees me, I still have feelings of insecurity from time to time. I still have to use the same strategies and practical steps that I share with you in order to help myself.

Take this past week for example. I had a reader unsubscribe from my blog which led to some feelings of rejection and being unwanted/unliked. I actually had mixed feelings about it. I was a little relieved because I don’t think this person really ever read my posts anyway, and it appeared to hurt my numbers or analytics on my subscriber list of “opened posts” (not that this is really that big of a deal, but these analytics could have bearing on my credibility with affiliates, etc.). At the same time though, I felt a little hurt and offended. I KNOW better than to feel this way, and I KNOW this person probably had perfectly good and acceptable reasons and never intentionally meant to hurt me. It still just smarts a little. It feels like somebody was saying to me, “I don’t like your stuff!”

I reached out to my sister, Shawna, to share my feelings and get some encouragement. She replied with the perfect message that really helped me (my words in italics)… Continue reading →

Vintage Vanity!

Many of us are surrounded with critical voices in our lives too. Expectations are thrust upon us from every direction—in our homes, in our jobs, in our schools, in our volunteering, with our families, with our friends, and on and on. We’re made to feel that if we don’t measure up to the standards of others we are somehow inferior.

So how do we overcome this? Continue reading →

How to Recognize Love and Feel Loved by Others

**Please read the companion post too: How to Overcome Feeling Unloved or Unwanted.

Last week we talked about how to overcome feeling unloved or unwanted. We focused primarily on how to know that we are loved and wanted by God. I truly believe that is the first step in overcoming this kind of insecurity in order to feel loved and wanted. Once we realize that God truly loves us and wants us, it’s much easier to believe and recognize that we are loved by others in our life.

“We understand what love is when we realize that Christ gave his life for us. That means we must give our lives for other believers.” 1 John 3:16 (GW)

Once we know God loves us, it’s much easier to believe that we are loved by others.

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Sometimes we feel like the people in our life don’t love or want us. There’s a possibility that might be a reality to an extent (like it was for Leah when Jacob preferred Rachel—Genesis 29). In most cases though, it’s our perception that is flawed. The reality is that we ARE loved. We just don’t recognize it. Just because we don’t FEEL loved doesn’t mean we aren’t. Just because it SEEMS like someone doesn’t care, DOES NOT mean they don’t.

Just because we don’t FEEL loved doesn’t mean we aren’t.

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This even happened to Jesus when he was sleeping on a boat during a storm (Mark 4:35-41), and his disciples thought that he didn’t care about them since he was sleeping… Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: insecurity

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With God–Part 2

Recognizing God’s Love By Building Your Relationship With Him–Part 2