O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O LORD.
Psalm 139:1-4
Ok, we're going to get real here. I'm going to tell you my second biggest fear (my hands are sweaty even thinking about it). My second biggest fear is a person's perception of me. Lame, right? You thought it might be something dramatic. Now, you are wondering what the biggest one is. We'll hit it another day. :) Anyway, I worry about a person's perception of me. It will be the thing that I agonize and worry over. Why? Maybe it's a drive to appear as though I've got things under control. Sometimes, however, it just falls apart. There are times that I cannot control someone's perception. That is where I struggle. Maybe it's my tendency towards people-pleasing that God is working with me on. Perhaps I need to rely more on God to form my identity instead of my identity being formed by relationships with others. God is growing me on this and the growth pains began this week with some timely 'opportunities' to help me grow. :)
I came across this verse is Psalms and I wonder why I am sometimes more concerned about a person's perception of me rather than God's perception of me. Why do we seek the approval of people when our God is our ultimate Redeemer and Friend? Oh, my friend, how I have struggled with this all week. God wants all of us-the good and the bad. He wants my service and my insecurities. He wants my obedience and my shortcomings. He wants my successes and my failures. It is so much easier to offer God my good sides only and to think I am hiding my struggles. I am learning to offer myself to Him entirely. He made me. He knows where I fall short and He can use my transparency to help others. <even as I type this I have the urge to highlight and delete because what will you think of me when you are done reading this?>
It all comes down to complete reliance and surrender. If we had it all together, then we would rely only on ourselves without a need to surrender to anyone. This verse reminds me that God's got every situation that I encounter but more importantly, He's got me. He knows me. He loves me even when I fail. Check out the lyrics to this song that just came to my mind as I was writing and take a listen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOY0mjjmx8Y&feature=player_embedded
I'm teaching through Galatians, and one thing we talked about today is how when we try to please people, they change. We can be doing everything just right but they change what they want from us. God is the only one who never changes. His expectations for us, stay steady, so we can be secure in them. Of course, the hard part is getting our hearts to believe that! :)
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