Someone once defined insecurity as the space between who I am, who I want to be, and who others want me to be. It is a feeling that arises from feeling as though you don’t measure up. Insecurity makes you feel like it is you against the world, when really it is just you against yourself. When you struggle with self-doubt, you end up being easily swayed, subject to fear, and anxious. The stories we hear of failures — relationships ended, careers swiftly over, etc. — are often blamed on something outside ourselves. Those are often really caused by something within ourselves, a subtle struggle with insecurity we aren’t even aware of. Insecurity can ruin lives. It has before, it will again. Don’t let it destroy yours.
1. Did you feel like you struggled with insecurity before this week's message? Were you surprised by any of the signs of insecurity that were listed? Which sign of insecurity convicted you most or opened your eyes to insecurity most?
2. What do you tend to be insecure about? How has insecurity impacted your life negatively in the past?
3. How does comparing ourselves with others fuel insecurity? Give examples from your own life.
4. Gideon wasn't in a place where you would expect a champion, he didn’t feel like a champion, and he didn’t have anything you would expect a champion to have. Even so, God called him a champion. Discuss about the list of Competing Identities from this week’s message. How do they relate to how God sees you?
What are some practical steps we can take that are in line with how God sees us, even when our circumstances seem to scream the opposite of how God feels about us?
5. In the story, Gideon was cowering in fear while his enemy was also kept up at night out of fear of Gideon. Do you ever think fear leads us to inaction while the forces of evil are fearful of our potential?
6. Through a process of winnowing down Gideon’s army from 32k to 22k to10k to 300, God was teaching Gideon that his ultimate security was in his Heavenly Father. How does finding our ultimate worth in God affect our insecurities?
7. Knowing that everyone is struggling with insecurity in some way, how important do you think it is for us as Christians to be constant encouragers?
8. What would you do if you knew God was absolutely with you and for you?
Pay attention to how you talk to yourself this week. When you find yourself speaking to yourself in a way that isn’t in agreement with what God sees when He sees us, begin to talk to yourself about the things God sees when God sees you.
Romans 8:31-32 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Crash the Chatterbox by Steven Furtick
So Long, Insecurity by Beth Moore
