White Stars With Glimmers of Blue: Treasuring the Greatness of Jesus By Fighting the Hidden Insecurity. Reyshawn Boone's Bobo

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.