When pursuing success of any kind – dating, marriage, parenting, discipleship, ministry, career, athletics…, the two most common obstacles are pride and fear.
Each creates a form of bondage that limits our potential. At their core, pride and fear are misplacements of trust. If I am prideful, I am trusting myself. If I am fearful, I am placing my trust in whomever or whatever I fear. These misplacements of trust tend to warp our perspectives of our situations, other people, and our own potential. Then, our warped perspectives cripple our ability to grow and move forward.
If pride & fear are ultimately misplacements of trust, the solution to pride and fear is faith, trusting God.
Typically, when we teach friends to overcome pride or fear with faith, we’re focused on a specific circumstance like a crisis or conflict.
But what about overcoming pride and fear in our everyday lives?
What do we do when our fear of what others think of us keeps us from doing what we want or should do?
What about those times when we’re driven by the fear of disappointing others?
What about when we’re doing the right, godly things, but primarily to impress other people?
We live in a look-at-me culture, with tremendous pressure to create our personal brands and manage the impressions others have of us, both in-person and online. Like most addictions, the addictive practices of impression management have a dark side. Those who find themselves increasingly motivated and driven to present an ideal image of themselves to others, inevitably collide into the realizations that it’s a never-ending wormhole with the expanding expectations of others continually changing and one’s attempts to adapt to each set of expectations creating a hollow sense of being seen by everyone but known by none. At some point, we’re chained, or even defined, by our pursuits of the approval of people we increasingly dislike. It’s not a coincidence that as societal pressure to manage what and how others think of us reaches unprecedented levels, the rate of anxiety and depression has climbed higher than ever.
Jesus offers a remedy in the Sermon on the Mount:
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6:1
In the following verses, he addresses giving to those in need, praying, and fasting, not as an exhaustive list, but as examples of righteous acts that can be driven by our pride and fear rather than our gratitude.
I don’t think God is withholding our gold stars of achievement when we seek to please others, rather than him. I think Jesus is telling us that we’re robbing ourselves of the freedom God offers us through simply obeying him without chasing the approval of others. Jesus is telling us to focus on the impression of only One, not as an act of earning favor, but as an act of gratitude. This ties directly to what he tells us a few chapters later:
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:29-30
Jesus wants to free us from the bondage of seeking to impress others and fearing what others will think of us. He’s telling us that as we simply seek to learn God’s will and seek to align our actions with God’s will without allowing our anticipation of the impressions of other people to invade our motivations, we will find simplicity, joy, and freedom while living our best lives.
Want to see this promise at work in your life today?
Do something special for someone else anonymously, just because you’re thankful for what God has done for you. You’ll get a taste of your best life.
