According to Jesus, what other people
think of me matters very little. What
God thinks, matters far more. Pray in a
closed room, Jesus said, where no one but your Father can see you, rather than
in a public place where you might get credit for being spiritual. In other words, live for God and not other
people. I keep clamoring for attention
and achievement. Jesus invites me to let
go of that competitive struggle, to trust that God’s opinion of me is the only
one that counts, ultimately.
"There are but two principles of
moral life in the universe," said the mystic Madam Guyon, "one which
makes ourselves, or the most limited private good, the center; the other, which
makes God, who may be called the universal good, the center." I could summarize my entire spiritual
pilgrimage as an effort to move the operating center from myself to God.
I ask myself how my life would differ if
I truly played to an audience of One, if I continually asked not "What do
I want to do?" or "What would bring me approval from others?"
but "What would God have me do?"
Certainly my sense of ego and rivalry would fade because I would no
longer need to worry about proving myself to other people. I could concentrate instead on pleasing God,
by living in such a way that would attract people to Jesus’ style of life.
-- Philip Yancey in Rumors of Another World
#3977
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