How Prayer Attacks Insecurity
The Best Weapon
Prayer is one of the best means to overcome insecurity. When we spend time with God, we are communing with the one who is greater than any other entity, the one who rules the universe. The experience of being in the presence of this God and realizing that he is our loving Father who delights in us is the most powerful weapon to attack our sense of insecurity. As Deuteronomy 33:27 puts it:
The eternal God is your dwelling place,
and underneath are the everlasting arms.
That is security.
As we bask in the secure love of the supreme God, the shame of our insecurity is challenged. David said, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed” (Ps. 34:5). While the shame described here was the shame coming from a crisis David faced, we can extend the application to all kinds of shame in our lives, including the shame of insecurity. Seeking God and sensing his affirmation through his answers to our prayers brings the brightness of God’s security onto our faces.
Joyful Perseverance
Ajith Fernando
Joyful Perseverance offers practical ways to find joy and energy to serve well despite the inevitable disappointments of ministry—embrace God’s grace, guard one’s integrity, groan with God, adopt a life of thanksgiving, and more.
When I was a theological student in the United States, John Stott visited our seminary. A short while before that he had visited Sri Lanka and befriended my parents. I went to every meeting that Stott addressed. After one meeting, he came up to me and asked, “Do I know you, Brother?” I replied that he did not know me, but that he knew my parents. I told him who my parents were. His response was to joyfully hug me. For the next few days I floated a few feet above ground level as I walked. My hero had hugged me!
I subsequently got to know John Stott and worked with him on a few projects. I was struck by his humility and his self-effacing nature. If I told him about my elation over being hugged by him, I suspect he would have told me, “Who is John Stott in comparison with God?” Being in the presence of our loving heavenly Father provides us with the greatest security! And that is what prayer is: being in God’s presence.
We Need a Biblical Understanding of God
Of course, we won’t be able to overcome our insecurities if we do not have a biblical understanding of who God is and respond appropriately to that understanding. We can summarize the nature of God with the term holy-love.
Because God is holy, he desires holiness from us. He says, “You shall be holy for I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16; see Lev. 11:44–45). We cannot have fellowship with God if we continue in sin. John says, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 John 1:6). And, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6; see also 1 John 2:4; 4:20). When I led Youth for Christ, I sometimes would learn that a staff worker would get angry at the slightest provocation. I would ask myself two questions: “Is this person working too hard and not getting enough sleep?” and “Has this person fallen into a serious sin?”
Seeking God and sensing his affirmation through his answers to our prayers brings the brightness of God’s security onto our faces.
Thank God, in Christ he has lovingly provided forgiveness for our sin. So when we repent and seek his forgiveness in prayer, he will “abundantly pardon” (Isa. 55:7), on the merits of Christ’s death. I love that word abundantly! There is no hesitancy on God’s part to welcome a repentant sinner. So Jesus taught that when we pray, we must ask God to “forgive us our sins” (Luke 11:4). Confession of sin is a regular part of a Christian’s life.
Not only does God forgive our sins but he also forgets them. People may not forget, and that can be painful and embarrassing. But the most important entity in our lives, God, says, “I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34). Paul describes the consequence of forgiveness well when he writes, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Without this freedom from condemnation, we would lose our security. Therefore, confession ought to be a major segment of our prayer life.
This seems almost too basic a matter to write about. Sadly, however, many Christian workers forfeit the freedom of a warm relationship with God by refusing to acknowledge their sin. Even the great King David struggled with this. He said that when he “kept silent” about his sin, his “bones wasted away” (Ps. 32:3). Lack of confession blocks grace in our lives. I know of Christian workers who have committed serious sins in the areas of sex or money, but their guilt could not be proved. Though it was clear to many that they were guilty, the offenders avoided being disciplined. Sometimes they were transferred to another place of service, where they would commit the same sins over again.
When I fail in areas related to my weaknesses, I share my failure with my accountability partners. This is in keeping with James 5:16: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.” That accountability along with their prayers is helpful for healing me after failure and serve as an incentive to avoid a recurrence of the sin. Two Greek words for confession (homologeō and exomologeō) are used five times in connection with confessing sin (1 John 1:9; Matt. 3:6; Mark 1:5; Acts 19:18; James 5:16). In every case, the context is the community of believers. God intends for us to grow in holiness along with other Christians.
Freed from the insecurity that guilt causes, we can enjoy the blessings of God’s love. Foremost among these is the privilege of being adopted as God’s beloved children. This is a fact that John marveled over. He said, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are” (1 John 3:1). The Bible even says that God delights in us.
He will rejoice over you with gladness;
. . . he will exult over you with loud singing. (Zeph. 3:17)
This is the glorious gift of love that God gives us: the thrill of knowing not only that God loves us but also that he delights in us.
We are constantly bombarded with ideas that challenge the reality that God is holy-love. These lead to unbelief, cynicism, fear, and erratic behavior. Therefore, when we pray, we must remind ourselves of the unchanging realities about God that are more significant than the negative messages we receive from this world. Praising God helps us do that. I have a pastor friend who sends me a hymn every morning. I usually start my daily time with God by singing that hymn. Adoration and praise through song is a good way to reorient our minds to focus on the unchanging realities about God.
Understanding who God is heals us of the pain, rejection, and shame we experience on earth. And we confirm the truths of God as we spend time with him.
This article is adapted from Joyful Perseverance: Staying Fresh through the Ups and Downs of Ministry by Ajith Fernando.
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