Overcoming fear, rejection, and the feeling of insignificance

Remember the TV show Cheers, set in the Boston pub? I loved how whenever one of the regulars came in, everyone warmly and enthusiastically shouted his or her name. “Norm!” I think all of us want to feel known and to feel like someone cares about us. There have been times in my life where I felt invisible, like absolutely no one knew me or cared about me. One of them was when I was struggling with postpartum depression after my son was born. We lived in a big city away from family and friends. I remember taking my son to McDonald’s just so we could be around other people. He sat there in his stroller happily eating ice cream while I sat in the booth, alone and very lonely. I looked around and it seemed like all of the other mothers were happily chatting with friends. I could have used Jon Drury’s book back then.

Lord, I Feel So Small: Using God’s Yardstick to Conquer Self-Doubt is a wonderful new book by Jon Drury about the search for significance. When you struggle with feelings of self-doubt, fear, rejection, and significance, the journey can be a long one. It takes time to battle and quench these feelings, and God’s truth, found in the Bible, are a powerful weapon. “Truths such as these have proven life-changing for me,” writes Jon. “I find I must immerse myself, swim in and breathe them continually to combat the world of lies within and outside of me.”

If you immerse yourself in Jon’s book, you will find answers to lies such as these:

• “You’re worthless. You have no value as a person.”
• “You’re insignificant. You’re just one in six billion, of no importance to anyone.”
• “You’re unworthy. You have failed and are unworthy of forgiveness.”

These lies need to be identified, rooted out, and aired in the light of what God says about us: we are unique, made in His image, and infinitely precious. There is hope available and there is forgiveness promised as we come to see ourselves as God sees us, transforming our grief into joy.

Jon’s style is conversational, warm, and friendly, like sitting down to coffee with a caring friend. His chapters are full of stories of people he’s known who have struggled with insignificance, but the most powerful stories draw from his own experiences. Although Jon has been a Navy fighter pilot, a Dallas Theological Seminary Student, and a much-loved pastor, he has struggled with insecurities, fear, and insignificance for most of his life. Lord I Feel So Small is his way of sharing what he’s learned along the way as he allowed God to lead him out of the agonies of these crippling emotional issues and into the joy and victory of embracing God’s plan and purpose for his life.

Lord I Feel So Small would make a great Bible study or small group study, with a list of discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Jon’s book is powerful, personal, relational, and theologically sound as he unpacks powerful life principles for dealing with twenty emotional issues related to the longing for personal significance. You don’t have to feel small; could it be that you are using something other than God’s yardstick to determine your worth?

By Susy Flory

Thoughts on a book: Lord I Feel So Small

Jon Drury is a man who speaks from a brutally honest heart. But I mean that in a good way.

The author’s struggle with the feeling of never measuring up, of never being quite as useful/smart/talented as the other guy, strikes a familiar chord in me. How any of us ends up in that rut doesn’t matter–the point is, we can climb up out of the mud. And Jon’s the man to show us how, because he’s been-there-done-that, and he’s on a mission to show us the way out.

Visually the book is a pleasant read, broken up into achievable chunks within each chapter. Call it my short attention span, or my inability to remain awake when faced with solid lines of prose, but this is important to me. But even more importantly, the text is conversational and approachable, like you’re just sitting down and having a really good chat with the guy.

One way he makes the truth of what he says more accessable is by using stories from his own life and from others. I love when authors include stories of other people, because let’s be real, folks, some of those stories make me happy to be me. But more to the point, Jon sees his own life story with clarity and honesty, then uses it to illustrate how to pull ourselves out of the muddy mess of our own flawed thinking.

If the many years I’ve spent with members of the Mental Health profession have taught me nothing else they have taught me this: our human thinking can be very, very flawed. How can we learn to challenge our thoughts? One way is by reading books like this one. Take a look at the sections and chapters to get an idea of the steps he leads you through in this re-look, re-think journey out of the muddy rut of self-doubt.

Section 1– Crafting the Foundation
Chapter 1: “Lord I Feel So Small!”
Chapter 2: Foundations for Significance
Chapter 3: Yardsticks of True Worth

Section 2– Feelings That Immobilize Us
Chapter 4: Transforming Despair Into Hope
Chapter 5: Morphing Fear into Courage
Chapter 6: Birthing Healing Out of Grief
Chapter 7: Discerning the Voice of Our Enemy

or Section 5– Experiences That Hamper Us (this section especially hit home for me)
Chapter 16: Converting Failure to True Success
Chapter 17: Turning Humiliation into Heroism
Chapter 18: Moving From Isolation to Friendship
Chapter 19: Conquering Worry with Trust

And this is only a sampling of the 20 chapters.

I was pleasantly surprised by the “Think It Through” questions at the end of each chapter. “Jesus!” is not the answer–at least to each of these questions. No, folks, sorry to say, if you make use of these you will actually have to Think It Through. I found them much more useful than the easy answer type questions you often find in study books, and more likely to actually provoke thought. And thinking is our friend.

The more you give this book in time and thought, the more you will gain. But even if you can only give it a quick read, there’s much to be gleaned. I, however, was unable to give it a quick read, wanting to learn enough to put my hip-waders away for good and step into summer sandles. I’m a flip-flops kind of girl, and flip-flops don’t fair well down in the rut.

By Julia Lynn

Lord, I have felt small, too!

In his book, Lord I Feel So Small (Using God’s Yardstick to Conquer Self-Doubt), Pastor Jon Drury answers the question posed inside the front flap of the book, “Is it possible to travel from the tortured lies of smallness to a sunrise of rock-solid confidence in God?” with a resounding YES! And he guides you through that process whether you come to the feeling of insignificance via (among other things) grief, fear, frustration, suffering, rejection, the attack of the enemy or some combination thereof.

With personal anecdotes from over thirty years in ministry and a lifetime of individual struggles, I found myself relating to some aspect in nearly every chapter. I would just finish a section thinking, “Yes, that’s me,” and then something in the next page would ring true as well. For me, as with Jon, the self-doubt started young with a parent, but for me it continued through a lifetime of weight issues that seemed to give others permission to dismiss, belittle and discriminate against me. I felt unworthy of respect, though I worked hard to earn it, and unworthy of love, which isn’t godly love if you have to earn it.

The book’s short chapters lend themselves to reading it as a daily devotional, especially since a set of “Think it Through” questions follow each chapter, perhaps for journaling. The format would work well as the devotional segment of a small group meeting, too. We gain little from that which we don’t consider and attempt to apply to our daily lives, so these questions help with that.

If I had to name one thing I least cared for about the book, I would say the inset quotes that interrupt more than half the pages. I found it personally distracting through the first half of the book, though by the second half I was so absorbed I tuned them out better.

God really used this book to help me with a situation that came up even as I polished off the last pages. Someone I knew took offense at my casual remark, flew off the handle and laid into me. I had the scripture and Jon’s wisdom fresh in my head and heart, confirming I am a child of God, loved and made righteous through His sacrifice. Nothing this person said could refute or reduce the significance of that. Lord I Feel So Small was like an extra little piece of the “full armor of the Lord” I wore against that attack!

By Jill A. Bratcher

Reflections on the book, “Lord, I Feel So Small”

This book is helpful for readers in identifying false standards of self-evaluation, and in finding more accurate ways to view oneself and one’s goals in life. “Lord, I Feel So Small,” written by a Christian minister, is from the perspective of personal faith. However, knowledge of the Bible is not necessary in order to understand the stories cited from it. The author also gives examples from the experiences of other people, while respecting their privacy, and most powerfully, from his own life struggles with feelings of inferiority, insignificance, and even depression. However, he does so in a constructive way, focusing on what he has discovered from books, family members, friendships and his relationship with God, resulting in breakthroughs to greater emotional peace and health. Perhaps what I admire most is his courage in sharing these difficulties, so that readers can have a sense of hope, and find appropriate coping strategies. Even the titles of some of the chapters, “Demolishing the Shame of Mockery,” “Healing the Sting of Rejection,” and “Moving from Isolation to Friendship,” demonstrate that the author is not simply describing painful attitudes and behaviors, but that he wants to offer practical suggestions for countering them and developing healthy responses. I found one of the most beneficial parts of the book to be a section entitled, “Where Do I Turn?”, in the chapter, “Unlocking Purpose in Suffering.” No one author has all the answers to spiritual well-being, nor does Drury make that claim. However, this volume is an important contribution to the understanding of emotional pain, and the journey to wholeness. Each chapter concludes with thought questions, so the volume can be useful for a study group.

By M. Horwitz

A Much Needed Resource

Several years ago, I had been criticized for the quality of my work. I believed the critic and experienced an increasing depression. I told Jon Drury, whose office was next to mine, about this. He immediately assured me that the critic was wrong. He said that I was very competent in my job, and that the critic did not know what he was talking about. His council pulled me out of the downward spiral. I am now excited to read a book that I can use to help others by Jon’s council as he helped me.

The book is very practical, biblical, and very well written. The true life illustrations make it an interesting read. I will be using this book from time to time in my personal life and in seeking to help others. Today, I gave one to a friend very much in need to Jon’s pastoral assistance.

By Walt Huckaby

Feeling Small

Maybe they won’t admit it, but probably most people have felt insignificant at times. Jon Drury is amazingly open and honest about revealing his own experiences dealing with those feelings.

But this book isn’t just a personal confession. It’s full of comfort and helpful suggestions and will help Christians learn to believe in their own importance to God in spite of grief, failures, and many other problems.

I won’t go into more details about the book since other people have already done that in their reviews, but I definitely encourage anyone with doubts about their own worth to read it. They’ll be inspired and helped if they do.

By Janet Ann Collins

Writer hits the mark!

Thank God for writer, teacher, pastor Jon Drury. Readers can always count on him to hit the mark!
Simply an exceptionally gifted writer.

By Soul Shaping