New, Not Better

When I was younger, before I really began to grasp the love of God and what Christ did for me, I was incredibly insecure.  I was shy and quiet.  I would let people walk all over me.  I never could trust that people actually liked me and thought I was fun to be around.  I thought so little of myself and allowed people to treat me like crap.  I only ever wanted to be liked and cared for, but was too scared to seek it out. 

On Wednesday I was sharing with the Impact team how I have been really fighting those insecurities; and the feeling that my new friends from a Bible study (Fire) I have started to go to don’t really like me.  I was asking for prayer that I can push the insecurities aside and remain in who God has made me.  Sarah piped up saying that I will always be that secretly shy, socially awkward, girl.  Maggie tried to tell me that was not true.  After the meeting she read 2 Corinthians 5:17 and said that it applies to me.

As I was driving to worship with Fire last night and was thinking about that verse.  “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone.”  It says a new creation, not a better person.  New.  As I was thinking about this I started to wonder what that would look like.

I think it’s like when you call Verizon for a new phone.  You always want a brand new phone; one straight from the factory.  Instead they send you a refurbished phone.  Those phones always have issues that show up a few months after they send it to you.  But on that lucky day they you get a straight from the factory, new phone, you have a phone that has no history of brokenness.  There are no “fixed” issues that will show up later. 

That is me.  I keep thinking I am a refurbished phone.  I am not.  I am a new phone.  There is no brokenness because Christ has made me new.  My old issues only show up because I expect them to.  I’m only insecure because I am not holding on to the promise that God made me. 

It is easy for me to think 2 Corinthians 5:17 applies to my leaders, my students, or my friends.  It is a lot harder for me to accept that for myself.  I need to remember that God wants to work on me as much as he does them.  I am just as much his beloved child as they are.  It’s time I stop selling myself short and trust God at his word.  I just don't know where to start.