Security and God

Recently I’ve heard more talks on issues of security than in the past.  Much of this is due to the financial crisis we face globally, some in reaction to the U.S. election, and others in response to culture and church.  But what does anyone really mean by security?

Security is defined as the freedom from risk, danger, doubt, anxiety, or fear.  Security is something that gives or assures safety and confidence.  I believe Jesus came to rescue us from anything that offers security including religion, because God is our only source of security.  Why do we search for ways to feel secure?  As a nation, church, party, people we strive for security above all else.   In fact security is illusive, impossible.  We all die.  We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us. People will surprise us. People change us. Nothing is secure.  That’s actually the good news – unless your whole life is about being secure.

If security is the focus of your “spiritual” life you can’t travel very far or venture too far outside a “religious or morale” circle.  You can’t allow too many conflicting ideas into your mind at one time or they may confuse you, challenge you, or change you.  You can’t open yourself to new experiences, new people, and new ways of doing things that may take you off course.  You don’t know who you are outside planned faith, so you cling to an intended identity.  You become a Christian, Muslim, Jew, you’re a Indian, Egyptian, Italian, American; your heterosexual, homosexual, or you never have sex or at least that is what you say when you identify yourself.  You become apart of an “us” in order to be secure and defend against “them”. You cling to your territory, because it’s your secure place, you must fight anyone who approach it.  You become your religion, cause, party; whatever “it” is that will freeze you, numb you, and protect you from doubt or change.  But all this does is shut down your mind.  In reality it does not make you safer.

All this striving for security has actually made you more insecure, because now you have to watch out all the time.  There are people not like you, people you now call enemies.  You have places you can not go, faults you can not reflect, and worlds you can no longer inhabit.  So you spend your days fighting things off, defending your territory and becoming more entrenched in your fundamental thinking.  Your days become devoted to protecting yourself – this becomes your mission – that is all you do.  Ideas get shorter and they become sound bits.  There are evil doers and saints, criminals and victims, there are those who if they are not with us are against us.  It gets easier to hurt people because you do not feel what is inside them.

Real security is not knowing something when you don’t know it.

Real security cannot be bought or arranged or accomplished with bombs. It is deeper. It is a process. It is the acute awareness that we are all utterly interdependent and that one action by one being in one town has consequences everywhere.

Real security is the ability to tolerate mystery, complexity, ambiguity — indeed hungering for these things.

Real security is living on God’s terms, knowing he does not live on ours.

Freedom means that I am not identified as any one group. I’m a follower of Jesus, broader than a Christian; I can visit and find myself in any group.  It does not mean I don’t have values and beliefs – it does mean I’m not hardened around them.  I do not use them as weapons.  In the shared future it will be just that – SHARED.  The end goal will be becoming vulnerable, realizing the place of our connection to one another rather than becoming secure and in control and alone.

 --Eve Ensler's (2005) TED Talk prompted these thoughts.