Joyce Meyer

I used to be a very insecure woman who gained worth and value through what I did. And I was in full-time ministry. I was a pastor on staff of a good church that was thriving, led a weekly meeting of about 400 women, had a parking space with my name on it, and an office with my name on the door.

I felt important. People came to me for help. They needed me - I was important!

Then one day, after working there for five years, as I pulled into the parking lot of the church, God spoke to my heart and said, "I'm finished with you here." That was hard to hear. God was finished…but I wasn't.

I knew God had something else for me to do - more for me to do. I have a God-given gift and ability to teach the Bible and believed that perhaps He could use me to reach more of the world than those at the church. I also had a desire to write books. But I felt safe and comfortable in my position at the church. So I stayed another year, and it was a frustrating, difficult year!

My insecurity and dependence on the "props" that made me feel important and valuable to people (my title, parking space, name on the door) kept me from being obedient to God when He first told me to leave that job. Through this experience I realized how insecure I was and how much I was striving to please people more than I was living to please God. I wasn't really complete in Christ.

Isaiah 2:22 says, "Cease to trust in [weak, frail, and dying] man, whose breath is in his nostrils [for so short a time]…" (AMP). I needed to learn to trust in God completely and gain my sense of value, worth and confidence in Him.

I've discovered that being alone with God - and I mean having no one to lean on but Him - is the single best thing that can happen to you. Because when there's no one else to lean on, you get to know God really well. Then you can become truly rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, put all of your confidence in God, and know who you are in Christ. You can be secure and free to do what He's leading you to do, not live to impress or please people. This freedom comes to those who personally know Him.

If you want to experience real security and be complete in God, then you have to form the habit of putting Him first in everything in your life - your conversation, how you spend your time, what you do with your finances…everything! And the way you put Him first is by spending time with Him.

There are many distractions in our world and things clamoring for our attention. And just as Jesus was tempted by the devil, we will be tempted to focus on everything other than God. This is one of the devil's strategies to keep us from knowing God personally and praying. In fact, the devil gets frantic and mean when there's any indication that we might spend enough time with God to develop an intimate relationship with Him. That's why he fights you to keep you from praying.

But we can be as close to God as we want to be. We can be filled with the presence of God and be totally complete. When we're filled with God, we don't waste our time trying to fill the emptiness in our soul with food, entertainment, a certain kind of car or house or social status. None of those "props" really satisfy us anyway.

I implore you to resist the distractions of the world and put God first in your life. Spend time with Him every day, on a regular basis. Let Him complete you and make you what He created you to be. When you do, your joy will increase, your peace will increase and you will finally be totally secure in Him.

For more on this topic, order Joyce's four-CD series Making Good Habits, Breaking Bad Habits. You can also contact us to receive our free magazine, Enjoying Everyday Life, by calling (800) 727-9673 or visiting www.joycemeyer.org <http://www.joycemeyer.org>.

Joyce Meyer is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of Joyce Meyer Ministries, Inc. She has authored more than 80 books, including Battlefield of the Mind and The Love Revolution (Hachette). She hosts the Enjoying Everyday Life radio and TV programs, which air on hundreds of stations worldwide. For more information, visit www.joycemeyer.org <http://www.joycemeyer.org>.