Better With Age: What's the Real Problem?

I've been reflecting on this idea of getting better with age since I made a flippant comment about it a few months ago.  We should be getting better with age. We should be learning God's Word and applying it to our lives. We should be expanding our skills and growing in our relationships. 

 But the main thing that struck me about this issue of aging was how much has changed in how I view myself. I've always been notoriously hard on myself. (Better to have high standards for me than everyone else, right?) It often manifested itself in being critical of myself and discontent with who I was. That's not healthy for anybody. God made you to be you. He made me to be me. He doesn't need another ______ (fill in the blank with whoever you would rather be). 

Now obviously I'm not talking about with thinking you've arrived. None of us have. We all need to learn and grow (did I already say that?) There's balance in everything. You  should be learning and growing to become who God wants you to be and to please Him. 

But how many ladies do you know who actually like who they are?

photo courtesy of stuart miles/freedigitalphotos.net

Most of this is wrapped up in how we see ourselves. We compare ourselves to others and we think we fall short. We see everything that someone else does differently as a statement about how we are doing it wrong. We have a "perfect" self visualized and we don't measure up. 

We don't speak truth to ourselves. We say things to ourselves that we would never say to anyone else and with good reason. 

I think the main problem for me, and probably lots of other ladies as well, is insecurity. We don't know where we stand with God or how God views us and our only other option is to try to impress ourselves and others to seek worth. 

Insecurity affects our entire lives-

-how we relate to God (are we trying to impress Him?) 

-how we view ourselves (self-talk really is important. Are you speaking God's Word into your own life?)

-how we relate to others (are we constantly comparing or running our own race?)

So what fixes insecurity? What's the answer? The answer is the right kind of confidence. The confidence that comes from obeying God. That's the only sure foundation.

  Next week we are going to talk about some of the problems are insecurity and then we'll move on to talking about real confidence. 

(I've been reflecting on this series of posts for a while and I can't get everything written to the extent it's affected me. I'll be working out the details while I write the posts even though I have the general ideas. Leave a comment with questions if I'm confusing.)