People Bondage: Part Four

Happy Valentine’s Day, loves! Today is Friday and the final day for the People Bondage Series. But as promised, two posts and two topics will be up today since I missed last Friday. How did ya’ll do on the challenge in Part Three? Let’s jump right in:

People are always going to have something to say. Whether you are doing good or bad, someone is going to have an opinion about whatever it is that you’re doing. I buy a dog, someone is going to wonder why you didn’t get a cat. You get a cat, someone is going to wonder why you didn’t buy a dog. Humans are fickle. We don’t know what we like! That being said, it is so important for you not to get caught up on the opinions of others. Like my pastor Cornelius Lindsey says, “If you live by people’s opinions, you’ll also die by them.” This makes total sense. The more you seek to please people, the more crushed you’ll be when you fail to receive their praise.

Now this isn’t to say that you shouldn’t get or value the opinions of others. I value the opinions of my boyfriend, friends, and family greatly, but not more than God’s. At the end of the day, God’s opinion will always matter the most. You don’t want your mind to be so filled with what people think of you that you down out what God is trying to tell you. He could be telling you to go to the right, which could be the unpopular way, yet you go to the left because of what others have said.

Ok, time to be honest with my Dear Sisters: Yesterday, I was talking to a friend about how I was feeling about serving at my church. I was telling her that I was feeling as if I was not doing enough and how I was afraid that people were thinking that I was being lazy. She said something that really made me think. She said that I have to stop creating situations in my head based on what I think people are and/or will say about me. I thought for a moment about how that is so true! It is way more likely that my fellow church members are a) are proud that I am serving at the church to the best of my ability or b) probably didn’t give a second thought about me serving at the church! There could also be very few people at the church who quite in fact do feel that I could be stepping up at the church. Who knows, and honestly, who cares? As long as I am being led by the Holy Spirit and being obedient, then that’s all that I need to worry about.

So, here is the challenge for the following week: Simply reflect on what anxiety or fear arise whenever you think about what people are saying about you. Cast down every negative thought. If God has told you to do something, and you begin thinking about the opinions of others. Cast it down, and be obedient to the Father.

Love you, sis!

Tiffany