Today we're going to talk about why so many of us get caught up in worrying about what other people think, about what we do, what we say, our opinions, maybe what we'll wear, you know, what path we take.

So we're going to dig into that and why it can really be a hurdle for us both in our lives and in our faith.

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So the question today is have you got caught up in the what ifs or what will someone say if I.

Or if I don't?

I don't know about you, but I have definitely been been caught in these types of thinking.

And I saw a clip of a podcast by Lisa Bevere recently that said the greatest fear of today is the is people's fear of man, which in other words are opinions of what other people will think.

So we get stuck in the what will people think of me if I do this?

Or what will people think of me if I don't do this?

Or what are other people doing?

I need to do that too, right?

And so we're more, or we can be more worried about what people think around us or our parents or, you know, whoever it might be, our friends.

Then we are worried about what God wants us to do or what God thinks about it.

And we spend too much time worrying and in fear about these things instead of letting it go and realizing that that comparison and that worrying of other people's opinions doesn't get us anywhere.

If anything, it actually sets us back.

And Lisa goes on to say that God wants us to live in a way where people see courage in our life.

And she says fear is contagious, but so is courage.

In other words, we need to be courageous to not worry about what others think, what man thinks, what the world thinks, right?

We want to only be focused on what God thinks, what God wants.

And here is one scripture that kind of aligns with this.

It's Proverbs 29:25 which says the fear of man will will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.

I think that's a perfect scripture.

If this is something that you are struggling with where you're you find yourself always worried about other people's opinions about you or about what you're going to do or what you're not going to do, how you're going to act if you have to stay on the career path you're in because you feel like you have to.

Right?

My parents will not approve if I change jobs or people don't think that this path I want to pursue but I feel really passionate about it isn't the right one.

So what is it that we are worried about?

What is it that we're afraid of if we're stuck in this?

What will people think of me?

I want to share just a couple things with you that I think speak to this idea.

The first idea comes from Lisa Whittle in her book Jesus Over Everything and she's basically talking about let's see.

She says it's it is hard as humans not to want to put our best faces forward, but it's far harder to spend a lifetime or any amount of time in pursuit of being loved and wanted for how we appear.

I've lived long enough to learn this the hard way.

If the goal in life is to be liked and accepted by everyone, welcome to a life of exhaustion.

There might be nothing more detrimental to a soul think a deadly over than daily overanalyzing how we appear to others and overworking to control it.

Choosing real over pretty is choosing to free our souls from the grip of an over focus on self.

Something that is the root cause of most of our distresses.

She says it also frees us to do what God created us to be, who he created us to be.

And this is our number one life work.

Chasing pretty, curating a life, appealing to everyone else is at odds with why we are even here.

I suspect this is why a lot of us stay wildly unfulfilled.

We feel cornered in a contrived, half baked or even false Persona.

We must keep up.

What an exhausting way to live.

It is the life of complication.

Being real is a gift we give to others, yes, but it is also a gift we give to ourselves.

It releases us to be simple.

We get to be who we are.

And I just thought that was beautiful.

And I think if we remember that right that God's calling us to be who we are and he's calling us to a simpler life to not live in comparison, to not try to compete or keep up the Joneses and to realize that it's when we stop worrying what other people will think when we stop worrying what the world will think.

It's.

That is when we start to feel the fruit of the Spirit, peace and joy and all of these things, right?

And so I think we need to remember that because it's so easy to get caught up and worrying about what others will think.

And let's see.

I. I had this.

Let's see, I had something saved.

It's from one of the first five devotionals from March 11, but it was.

Who wrote it?

Victoria Rioliens.

I probably said that wrong, but she's talking about being bold in our faith.

And she says this.

He still calls each of us to move courageously in community.

The Holy Spirit may be encouraging you to pray boldly for someone, to offer hospitality or to lead a Bible study, whatever the calling is.

May we pray for the fearless confidence to follow the Lord in word and.

Indeed.

But, you know, she's.

She's basically talking about something similar, which is we're called to be courageous.

Much like Lisa talked about having courage, people want to.

I mean, in other words, our courage is.

Is contagious to other people.

So when we act out in faith and when we act boldly as ourselves and how God wants us to act, other people take notice.

Other people, right.

Want to say, like, how can I be like that?

How can I have more peace?

How can I have more joy?

How can I not worry or be afraid of what other people think?

And then Mark Patterson, in his book Million Little Ways, said he's talking about the enemy, and he's explaining that the enemy, Satan, can't make choices for us.

But he says this.

He peddles half truths.

He plants seeds of doubt.

He shifts our focus to forbidden fruit.

If you let those lies take root, you start living the wrong story.

And I feel like that's what so many of us do.

We keep staying on a path or a choice or a decision that we know doesn't align with us.

We know it doesn't feel right.

Something feels off.

Or we keep acting a certain way when we know we want to move in a different direction.

But so often it's just because of this fear of man.

We are more worried about the opinion of other people or how it will look than we are about actually just getting ourselves in line with our faith, in line with our values and our priorities.

Okay, and then I want to share this with you from the book Fervent.

She says the enemy wants you to suffer from a case of mistaken identity, makes his job a whole lot easier, and makes your defenses a lot weaker.

He's working overtime to keep your identity masked, to keep your truth from coming out, that you are indeed alive and free and empowered by God's own spirit to fight victoriously against Him.

He'd rather conspire to keep you in a constant state of mourning, grieving over who you wish you were instead of relishing who you really are, exacerbated by insecurity and crippled by self doubt.

That's why he doesn't want you praying, not fervently, because fervent prayer keeps your identity in focus, reminds us who we are, who we really are, and taps into the power we really have in Christ.

And today I just wanted to share this because when I saw what Lisa said about so many of us are caught up in the opinion of other people, and that's one of the greatest, I guess, losses of today, it really did hit me.

Because while I try not to make this my, you know, how I operate, of course, I still find myself getting stuck in this thinking sometimes, maybe not in all parts of my life, but even with my podcast and other work I'm doing, working with people, I find that I still have some people saying, like, oh, are you going to work, you know, a corporate job again?

And then on occasion, I find myself thinking, yeah, maybe I should do that, right?

In other words, maybe this path isn't the path that I should stay on, even though I know it is, but I start questioning it because of the opinions of other people.

So this is what we're talking about, and I think it's really important for us to think about this.

Like, are we more concerned about how God sees us and who we are being?

Or are we more concerned about comparing ourselves to others and how we come off in the world?

Okay, the last Or I want to share this other scripture with you.

And it says, for I am now seeking the approval.

I'm sorry, let me start over.

For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

And that's Galatians 1:10.

I think all of us as humans struggle or can struggle with this, right?

So I'm not saying that it's never going to crop up.

It's just like saying that of course we're.

We're still going to sin as humans, right?

But we're going to try not to sin.

We're going to try not to.

To worry more of the opinion of man.

And so that is you know, that's another good scripture that kind of reminds us not to look for approval of other people, but to keep our sights on Christ.

And then the last thing I'll share with you is it's John 12:43, which says, for they loved praise from men more than praise from God.

Right?

Which is not what we want.

That is not who we want to be.

And so today I just wanted to come on and share this with you because I think sometimes we just get caught up in our lives.

We get caught up in our old patterns or maybe even our trajectory in life.

And we think it has to stay that way because we've gone down a certain path or made a certain decision.

Maybe we have a certain friend group or we act or dress a certain way, or we always seem to have the latest things.

But we do not have to keep or continue to to do what we did yesterday.

We can decide that that is not what we want to do.

We don't want to compete.

We don't want to try just to get the accolades of our friends or our neighbors or our community just to keep up or just to fit in.

We want to chase after who Christ says we are and who he made us to be.

I think that's just so important.

So today was just a mini episode.

I just wanted to come on and share that with you.

But I do want to let you know what's coming up in the next couple of weeks.

I have some great guests coming on that I can't wait to share with you.

I have one guest.

We're going to talk about weight loss from a Christian perspective.

We're going to talk about food, food, faith and fitness.

I have another guest.

We are going to be talking about the nature of rest and just how important it is to rest.

But by rest, we're not talking about just sleep.

We're talking about refreshing rest, renewal, tapping into our creativity, and delighting in the things that bring us joy in life.

I have a guest that's going to come on and talk about walking through hard things, having a narcissistic spouse, and having to leave that marriage and then really recreating herself and deepening her faith in her second act of life.

And I have so many other great guest interviews coming up that are just getting scheduled now that'll be coming out this fall.

So I'm really excited to share all of that with you in the coming months.

And I also wanted to let you know I would love to encourage you every week and if you would like more encouragement and to just be feel empowered and step into everything God has for you.

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So I would love to work with some of you.

So if that's of interest go over to my website and check out all of those details as well.

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