Breaking Free from Insecurity: How God’s Love Liberates Us from the Need for Approval

Blog by Alan Fadling

In An Unhurried Leader, I shared that I’ve often been tempted to prove something about myself through the work I do. I behave as though my value is uncertain and needs to be earned or achieved. But to use theological categories, my worth is more a matter of grace than it is a matter of works. That sort of insecurity has been a major driver of hurry in my life. I wonder if you identify.

But our value as persons is given us by our Father in heaven. The jury is not out deliberating about this. The Father has already determined that he loves us and delights in us as sons and daughters who belong to him.

But so often we still find ourselves seeking something in our work that only God can give us. Insecurity like that is a major motor for hurry. It can drive us to frantic activity that drains us—a frenetic pace that wearies us. It makes such a difference when we bring holy confidence and joy to our work.

Again, we are mistaken when we imagine that our worth is hanging in the balance of how well we perform. In this scenario, if you have a productive and successful week, you feel like you matter. If you have a bad week, an unproductive week, a week that feels way more like failure than success, you can feel worthless.

In the kingdom of God, we bring worth to our work rather than finding worth there. We express our value rather than establish it through what we do. This has been a paradigm shift for me, one that I’m still making.

Let me remind you, because I’ve said this before: Your identity is a gift you’ve already received rather than a paycheck you have to keep earning.

In an early chapter of An Unhurried Leader, I wrote, “My leadership has sometimes been a frantic attempt to establish some sense of an identity I feel I don’t yet possess. I’m seeking a God-honoring way of leading that is fueled by a secure sense of the value and identity I have in him. But I’ve too often found myself leading from a place of unholy dissatisfaction rather than from a place of holy satisfaction” (pp. 18-19).

Leading from insecurity puts pressure on those I serve. No matter how subtle it may be, I’m communicating that I need something from them. That I need them to be impressed by me. That I need their “Wow!”

By the way, insecurity doesn’t always look timid or tentative. Often, especially in leaders, insecurity is expressed in overstatement or overperformance or showy self-expression. Whenever I find myself seeking to impress others, you can bet that insecurity is at the root of that activity.

But at my best, I am free from needing anyone else’s “Wow.” The affection of my Father in heaven, which is given rather than earned, is all I need. And I already have access to that now, before I do one impressive thing. The delight of God over me is measureless.

When I’ve struggled to trust God’s words of love and pleasure over me, I find myself looking to just about anyone or anything else to prove—or even earn—some sense that I matter. And most of the time I don’t even realize that’s what I’m doing. This is one of the reasons why spiritual disciplines of disengagement are so important for leaders. They help us grow in greater self-awareness. They train us in noticing what’s happening in us right in the middle of the busyness that surrounds us.

When I regularly practice solitude and silence, for example, there is no one there to impress with my presence or my words. There is no one from whom I can seek approval. There is only God, and God is not waiting for me to impress him. He already knows all there is to know about me. He already knows my successes and my failures. He already knows my good work and my bad. He knows me fully, and he embraces me as I am.

There is a potent line in 1 John 4:16 that I’ve come to love: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

When we talk about knowing the love of God, we can too easily stop at just knowing about God’s love. It’s a verse we’ve memorized. It’s a teaching we’ve heard. It’s an idea we agree with, at least in theory.

But John says that he has come to know and rely on the love of God for him. Relying goes deeper. It involves confident experience. God’s love can become rooted and established in us. Relying on God’s love becomes a foundation for who we are and what we do. It produces a holy security that displaces insecurity in us.

Knowing and relying on the love of God for us changes everything—inside and out. God’s love sends us confidently as servants into our world.

For Reflection:

• In what ways does insecurity show up in your life or work? How might it help if you came to more deeply know and rely on God’s love for you?