Insecurity

Lately, I have been super insecure. I have had this irrational fear of my own inadequacy and a fear of the way others view me. I'm super insecure right now about writing this blog thinking that you will probably judge me. We all go through this I'm sure, but lately it has been really bad. It has been almost debilitating. Instead of stepping out and being who God had made me to be, I cower in fear and insecurity. This bothers me a lot because I see it not only in myself, but I see this passivity and insecurity in those around me.

Recently, I went to the Filipino club here on campus to hang out and show a video my group made for a class presentation. Some of the students in the club were featured in the video. As the video started and even before it started, it was amazing to see people who were in the video run out of the room because they were embarrassed of hearing and seeing themselves on video. Now, I can't blame them. I probably would be a little awkward too. As they movie went on, some of the students were laughing and kind of making fun of some of their friends in video. There seemed to be a general lack of interest in the video until the end, when people got silent and seemed to pay attention for once in the video. It was the part that mentioned we must remember who we are and featured a quote by Jose Rizal, a national hero of the Philippines. The quote was "He who does not know how to look back at where he came from will never get to his destination."

Now, I could skim over this sequence of events like it has no significance to the rest of my life. But I can't do that because I really feel like God is speaking to something bigger in this whole situation.

If you have read through my last few blog posts, you might now that God has really been putting the Filipino community on my heart in the past few days. It all began a while back, but this new fervor for the Filipino community came about this past Friday when I was awoken at 5am. If you look at my past blog, you will see that I was suffering from a lot of insecurity and awkwardness that morning. But it was through that God really reminded me of my identity and called me back to learning and understanding the cultural identity and destiny he has set forth for Filipinos.

Later that morning, I began to discover the prophetic destiny of the Philippines and hear some of the powerful words that have been spoken concerning this nation. It was an amazingly inspiring and empowering moment. Later that day, I was totally flipped upside down as I began to suffer a lot of spiritual attack and fell into sin. I confessed and got right with God again, and the next night as I was doing research I was led to a movement in the Philippines that is doing exactly what God has put on my heart - telling Filipinos who God says they are! A couple days later, I began to struggle again and experienced more spiritual attack as I again I fell into sin. Interestingly enough, that night I was working on the video about Filipinos that I was going to show to my class and that I showed to the Filipino club. All this to say that as I have been pursuing the heart of God for the Filipino people, I have experienced a level of spiritual attack that I have not gone through in a while.

In the midst of all that, I just got a message this morning that the founder of the movement in the Philippines that I just started tracking that they will be in Arizona this week and would like to get in contact! Crazy! Random!? Odd or God? So I potentially have a chance to meet the founders of the Ako ay Pilipino movement, God-willing. So pray for that.

Anyway, I share my heart again about the Filipinos because it has been through these experiences that God really spoke to me about the situation that happened at the Philippine club just today. Before, I went to the Philippine club I spent some time praying and coming before God. I haven't desperately called out to God in so long, but today there was breakthrough. I began to cry out for God and come before him in prayer in a way that I haven't experienced in far too long. Today, I also began praying for the Philippines. Now, I have never really prayed for the Philippines quite so fervently before. But today something was different, I started crying out to God for my people. It was a pretty powerful moment.

In that time, God began to speak to me through that incident on Friday morning again when he woke me up. What came to mind was that the insecurity and passivity I was experiencing that morning was what the Filipino community was experiencing as a whole. That thought really struck me, but then then I forgot about it until tonight when I went to the Filipino club. It seems to make sense why people ran out of the room when they were about to be shown on the video. It makes sense why there was a interest and a focus on the part that talked about remember where we came from.

The Filipino community is suffering a lot of insecurity right now. My friend put it like this, "hey man, read your blog. I have been pondering about Filipino stuff, too. I was doing a little research on filipino history, yesterday - colonialism etc. I had a lot of questions about filipino identity, and such. Ya, I feel there's still a lack of unity, and a unified culture, and a sense of self. Just thought I'd share that w you." The Filipino identity has been wounded and damaged by a history of colonialism and corruption. There is a lack of unity in the community. In fact, what I sensed tonight was a spirit of apathy and indifference. But as my friend Kelly has mentioned, it is so subtle that you can hardly recognize unless you know what is at stake.

I really believe that Filipinos are suffering from insecurity because they don't know who they are. They have taken on the titles that other have placed on them such as Asian or Pacific Islander because it is easy for others to understand. But what taking these titles has done is stripping away personal and corporate identity for the sake of taking on someone elses conception of who they think we are. There is a self-hate in our community. The enemy has caused us to hate ourselves because if we hate ourselves, we wont want to really know who we are or take the effort to find out.

Now this doesn't only relate to Philippines. I think it goes for all people. But God has been really showing me how these hurts have built up individually in me and culturally as a people group. I believe that in seeing some of these things, it informs the way I am able to pray and be aware of what is at stake individually and corporately. It is not a mistake that I have struggled so much lately. It is not a mistake that I have been feeling so insecure and now recognizing it in others. What we experience in the physical is an indicator of the spiritual.

The enemy doesn't want us to know who we are, but when we try there will be opposition. That's where community comes in. I'll try to talk more about that in my next post.