Overcoming Anxiety and Insecurity in Your Personal Development Journey

Most humans want to see fruitful outcomes in life. We are created like the Father to want what He wants, though we may express it differently. Despite this abiding desire, life presents boulders that can obstruct not only our view but also disrupt our progress toward the future we’ve envisioned. Personal development can help.

Daunted and overwhelmed, we sometimes abandon the pursuit, clouded by discouragement and cluttered by life. Dreams from God often loom larger than what we feel is possible with limited resources. We feel like we lack strength, time, finance, or other human help. Yet, the Holy Spirit pokes desire in hearts that attempt to hibernate or suppress what God has intended to be fully alive and awakened.

It can be frustrating to navigate two opposing feelings. We have fiery hope on one hand. On the other, our lives are flooded with anxious thoughts and insecurities that don’t align with what God has revealed. The way out of our present situation isn’t always clear. We often feel disconnected from pieces of the future picture that the Holy Spirit may have revealed.

Combined, anxiety and the flurry of present activities lure our focus from the sufficiency of God. This shifts our attention to our insecurities instead of the expected end God wants us to see. If that weren’t enough, we are prone to pivot toward distractions instead of taking meaningful, steps toward purpose – even if those steps are small

Although anxiety threatens to keep us from pursuing the big dream or desire, each small step brings us closer. Limiting our focus to the part that God wants us to do may stretch our resolve, activating feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. However, it is in the time that we spend, seeking the Lord’s Face, that anchors our peace and settles our sufficiency in Christ (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Above all, we must allow God to be sovereign in our lives, trusting Him to reveal strategy and order our next steps onto the unfolding path ahead. Even when it is awkward and uncomfortable, the dance of nurturing the spiritual while applying ourselves practically produces what God wants us to experience with Him.

Seek God in your personal development

Throughout Scripture, the power of small is amplified in both the Old and New Testaments. God doesn’t require us to work miracles on our own to get the job done. In and of Himself, He can do what we cannot. Seeking and communing with Him enables us to see and do what we previously could not.

The Lord has a history of working with and through individuals in the Bible who didn’t have all the resources or skills they felt they needed. While they lived it, we read their accounts, recognizing that it all worked out better than they hoped.

Yet, when it comes to our own lives, we wrestle with some of the same realities. Anxiety and insecurity host a party, populated by our thoughts like:

• Does God realize who He’s calling?
• Does God see what I lack?
• Does God know what He’s doing?

The answer is a resounding “YES!” to all of the questions above. It is not always the answer we want to hear, but it is one that we need to learn for our spiritual and personal development.

Settle in God’s sufficiency for personal development

Anxiety and insecurity have impacted many who sought to work with and for God. We aren’t the first to wrestle with these challenges. Moses experienced similar distress.

Worried about returning to Egypt after having killed an Egyptian, Moses had legitimate concerns about being a murderer and planning to return to the crime scene four decades later. Furthermore, Moses admitted to God that he felt insecure about his speech impediment. He doubted that he would have been able to effectively convey God’s intentions with clarity and conviction.

But Moses protested again, “What if they won’t believe me or listen to me? What if they say, ‘The Lord never appeared to you’?” Then the Lord asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A shepherd’s staff,” Moses replied.  Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord?  Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.” – Exodus 4:1-2,11-12, NLT

Moses may have been conflicted about having a foot in both Egyptian and Israelite cultures and communities. He had withdrawn from identifying as an adopted Egyptian, yet his people seemed to have scorned and mocked him when he wanted to intervene on their behalf (Hebrews 11:24; Exodus 2:14). Although God was calling him to deliver, it would look differently than prior attempts at advocacy forty years earlier.

Feelings of inadequacy troubled Moses, yet God counseled and trained, stirring him to look at his own hands as the conduits through which the Almighty would release mighty miracles. Above all, God promised to be with Moses, supplying not only the words but also a spokesman in his brother Aaron. Most importantly, Moses had Yahweh’s authority as the I AM to back him.

 God replied to Moses, “I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel: I am has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.” – Exodus 3:14-15, NLT

See the vision

We may not always have the grand investment of time, a unified collection of uninterrupted moments to devote to how we would envision partnering for desires, dreams, and destiny. We’re often busy, trying to live as life comes and keep up before it passes us by. Woefully, we often despise our small beginnings, lamenting how little we have.

Unfortunately, anxiety and insecurity drain our time and momentum, causing us to focus on what we don’t have or who believe we are not. Perhaps, we only need to upgrade our ability to see with God along this personal development journey and willingly work what He’s placed in our hands.

Strategize personal development

We often forget that God who created, chose, and called us, administers the grace needed for any vision that He has planted in us. As I AM, He will be all that is needed to fill our blank spaces, bless the work of our hands, sharing the wisdom and strategy to sojourn ahead.

He enables us to do the impossible in partnership with Him and intersects our path with others who will help us practically and champion us spiritually. When we change our lenses, choose to see the vision, seek Him for the next step, and maximize what is in our possession, we give space for God to get glory out of our little.

Sojourn with God

Similarly, our Father is the God who has created us with a unique purpose. He chose us to live in fellowship with Him as sons and daughters, and He calls us into a worthy and esteemed place to extend His Kingdom on the earth.

God has a vision for our lives that He invites us to do with Him, but sometimes the insecurity and anxiety that we need to overcome is not completely resolved. God is glorified above anxiety and through our insecurities, even as He was with Moses. The focus was removed from what Moses himself could or could not do, demanding that he remain in constant communication with the Lord who was guiding him with each turn and plot twist.

What to step into next

While you are stretching into new directions in both spiritual and personal development, take a moment to consider that God has invested in you. His Holy Spirit is the treasure within that will navigate your course and support you with making wise steps toward your destiny (2 Corinthians 4:7). Don’t abandon the small beginnings by discounting yourself and the divine power within to effect positive change in your world (Zechariah 4:10).

We encourage you to reach out to one of the counselors on this site. Make an appointment and begin to see yourself with fresh eyes as you consider what’s inside yourself, He who made you for this purpose, and the gifts and supernatural grace in your hands.