When I hear the word “security” my 29-year-old mind still pictures the Peanuts character Linus and the dirty raggedy blanket he always dragged around with him. A GCC high school student said security makes her think of a safe place. She feels most secure when she is giving and receiving a hug. I imagine the majority of GCC adults think of a different set of words, like financial security and job security. Not quite as warm and delightful as blankets and hugs, right?
I’d be lying if I said I never struggle with the heart idol of security. I long to see the day when my parents no longer help with my cell phone bills and my car insurance. Typically the words “job security” and “ministry” don’t end up in the same sentence together. I look back to relationships in the past I had to say goodbye to for one reason or another, and I fear my current relationships may go through that same painful process.
Regardless of our age, we all long to feel secure– whether it be in an amount in our bank account, in our jobs, in our relationships, in our grades, or in our health. Security appears to provide us with protection from the scary unknown that is our future. Security is often associated with stability in that we long to have more than enough to meet all of our needs and keep all of our ducks in a row. Money to pay the bills, a steady job, loyal friends, and good health aren’t bad things to desire. However, these good things can become a problem when they are turned into ultimate things as Tim Keller says.
The second something threatens to knock one of our ducks out of line – rumors of layoffs at work, news of a good friend’s move, a difficult time in your marriage, receiving a call from the doctor regarding test results – we often abandon our trust in God’s provision for us. We go into self-preservation mode, working and striving with everything we have to secure the things under attack. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had any success yet in my attempts to fill in for God.
The truth is there are only two places we can look for security: horizontally, looking to something in creation to give us that feeling of stability we long for, or vertically, trusting God and His goodness and provision as our security. When we look horizontally to creation for security and stability, we’ll always be left wavering. But if we look vertically we find a God who offers us security and eternal blessings that can never be shaken.
That sounds nice and spiritual, but what does that practically look like – looking vertically instead of horizontally?
I think looking vertically means clinging and holding fast (like Linus and his blanket) to what you know to be true even when you feel otherwise. I have a good friend in Pennsylvania whose husband lost his job, and she said during that uncertain time of life she had to live and breathe verses like Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Looking vertically for our security also allows us to accurately see the Source and Giver of all of the horizontal things. We realize our money really isn’t our own but His. Any job we have is an opportunity to use the gifts God has given us to glorify Him, not ourselves. The relationships we have with one another are possible because He wired us for them and He planned for our paths to cross.
So, in what areas of your life are you quick to say “God, I got this” when threats surface? What is anchoring your soul in the choppy waters of life? Where are you looking for security: horizontally in things that will inevitably fail you, or vertically in the One who never will?
In Him,
Stacey