My youngest daughter LOVES playing dress up. She does it almost everyday and it’s the first thing she does after she comes home from school. I find clothes everywhere from where she’s disrobed to put on yet another one of her dress up outfits. If she isn’t dressing herself up, she’s changing the outfits on her many dolls. I’ve never thought about the real depth of playing dress up until the other day God spoke to me while I was watching her in her fantasy world. He whispered, “She’s playing dress up with her clothes like we play dress up with who we are”.
I’ve struggled with insecurity issues since as long as I can remember. I don’t remember a time in my life, as sad as it sounds, where I wasn’t seeking approval or validation from people through what I did, how I dressed or what I said. But the funny thing about that is, as much as I wanted to be seen and validated, I wanted to be invisible at the same time. I desperately tried to fade away, all the while inside asking “Do you see me? Am I doing a good job?”
It’s crazy to me how early our insecurities and doubts about ourselves start. Once we realize that in order to fit in with the people you value the most, thinking we have to have things in common with them; we start changing ourselves to prove worth of their friendship.
With one group of people we wear one personality and then change again for another. We don’t know how to be truly us in front of people for fear of rejection. But I would say there are very few people who are truly comfortable with who they are, that they don’t play some form of dress up in their life.
I think it’s safe to say that a lot of people play dress up at church. They hide the sins they have in their life, and the things they did on Saturday night to fit it with who they think they need to be. Afraid that if their fellow christians knew what they struggle with, they would no longer be accepted.
Why do we think we need validation from others, when Jesus says that we only need to worry about who we are in Him?
For they loved human praise more than the praise of God. – John 12:43
I think it comes down to trust. Jesus said “all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the dark” John 12:46b.
Our insecurities all come from the darkness of this world. Jesus can take us out of the darkness and into the light, if we would only trust His word and what He says. But we’ve been hurt in our earthly life so much, that we can’t grasp the fact that we can trust that, God will do what he says he will do and that he will keep us safe from the things that hurt us.
Until we learn to trust the word of God, we will always seek validation from the things of this world. We will always want to please others. Until we know who we are in Jesus, we will never know how to be who he has created us to be.
I’m learning more and more everyday to be comfortable in who He has made me to be. Not to say I don’t struggle with my identity on the daily. In situations that are uncomfortable for me, I will fall back into my insecurities and forget who He says I am. The more we read the bible and find out who He has called us to be, the easier it is to walk in the comfort of knowing who we are and learn that if people don’t like the true you, they are just missing out on a great thing that God created.
