John K. Jenkins Sr - Securing The Insecure

I want to talk about, as a matter of fact, the title of my message today: "Securing the Insecure." I want to discuss insecurities and how to address them, because I know you may not struggle with this issue, but everyone else in your row has, at some point in their lives, faced insecurities , if not now, then at some juncture in their lives. I grew up as an extremely insecure person. The word "insecure" means having no confidence , a lack of assurance, feeling uneasy, having self-doubts, and being hesitant, indecisive, or uncertain. The reality is that throughout your life , you will go through seasons and situations where you won't feel comfortable ; you'll feel insecure .

When I was growing up in Glenarden , my insecurities were heightened by the people I grew up with, who enjoyed making fun of the things we didn 't like about ourselves. How many of you have experienced knowing something about yourself that you dislike, only to have everyone at school-or some kids in school -discover that one thing and highlight it, teasing you about it? You know, whether it's your feet being too big, your ears sticking out, your nose being too big, your lips being too full, or being too short , too tall, too fat, or too thin-whatever it might be. For me, it was my head. My father, you know, my school buddies laughed at me and said I had a big head . As a matter of fact, my father made me get a haircut every two weeks. I had a crew cut-close on the sides, flat on top . I had it about 20 years before it became in style. I was ahead of my time ; however, I had to go every week, and I begged my father to let me style my hair like the other kids. The rest of the kids had big hairstyles. The boys had big bushes. You'd come to school one day , and the guys would have a T.W.A. Does anyone know what a T.W.A. is? A "teeny weeny afro." Your hair would be tightly packed . Then you would go out to the store and buy the Afro blowout kit. Did you all get that kit? Yeah. You'd put the blowout kit in , and your hair would come out like that. Then you'd go to school the next day, shaking your head like Michael Jackson with your hair all over the place . Oh, some of you are acting like you didn't experience that. Well, everyone had the blowout kit and the big bush ; I had the crew cut instead. They made fun of me, laughed at me , and created names for me . They called me "light bulb head." In fact, one of my classmates- I won't call him a friend-drew a face and hairline on a light bulb, added arms and legs, and said, " Here's John," and carried it around while everyone laughed at me. It amplified my insecurities .

Now, you ' re sitting here looking at me like you' ve never had anything like that happen to you, but there's always someone who knows how to poke fun at that one thing about you. I found myself feeling insecure, and I grew up with that. I'm not alone in this; Jeremiah in the book of Jeremiah was also an insecure guy . However, Jeremiah had an assignment on his life from God: to prophesy to a rebellious people. He was tasked with proclaiming and preaching to the Kingdom of Judah, the southern kingdom. But he was afraid-he was insecure for many reasons. In verse 6, he said, "I cannot speak, for I am a youth." He thought he was too young to deliver God's message. He said, "I'm just a child ; I can't go and speak to those people ." He was afraid to address them because, as stated in verse 8, he dreaded their reactions. When he looked at the people he wanted to preach to , he became frightened because they weren't smiling at him. The truth is , if I made the decision on how long I would preach, or whether I would preach truth, based on your faces, I would have stopped a long time ago ! It can be tough; every week , I come here and see people squinting, sleeping , or doing whatever else they might be doing. But you have to learn and grow, and Jeremiah had to learn this, too. God taught Jeremiah that he could not base his fulfillment of his assignment on how he felt , what others said , or how they looked at him . You and I need to understand that we have an assignment from God, and we cannot determine our willingness to obey that assignment based on what other people think.