John Donne penned the words, 'No man is an island, entire of itself'. We are taught that man is a social animal. We have to be around people in order to survive. And what others do, how they interact with us, affects us greatly, even determines our behaviour. Perhaps one of the greatest of all questions we ask ourselves is the question: What do they think of me? What is the opinion of other people about me? Do they like me or not? Do they think I am beautiful or not? Do they thinks I am 'cool' or not? We tend to spend our lifetime trying to 'fit in' the culture around us, we labor to develop an image of ourselves which would be acceptable and appreciated by people around us. We all want people to like us. And we tend to go great lenghts in order to achieve this objective.We make sure our clothes are current fashion, we listen to popular music, we try to keep up with the latest gossip, all beacuse we don't want to be left out of anything.
In the world today, where Christians are considered 'anti-everything', it is quite impossible to fit into the life around us. There are certain things a follower of Christ cannot do, certian things he should not hear or see, certain words he should not speak, certain places he cannot go. Where does he fit in, then? Jesus said, "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you".(John 15:19,NIV)
Yet,the question still nags me, and I believe it nags us all as human beings; what do they think of me? As a Christian, called out of the world, I still want the world to like me. The opinion of other people around me is extremely important.I still ask, what do they think of me? So what do I do then, do I go on living, saying things like 'I don't care what anybody thinks about me', yet deep down I know that I really do care...
or I can turn to Jesus.... What would He have done? What did he do? No deep meditations required. The scriptures tell us, to my great relief, that Jesus too, asked this question. Three gospel writers, (Matthew, Mark and Luke) record that Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do the crowds say I am?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life."And then he asked them,"But what about you?", "Who do you say I am?" and Peter answered, "The Christ of God." Luke records that, eight days later, Peter, James and John accompany Jesus to a mountain to pray, and they hear a voice from heaven saying 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.'
I see an answer to my question in these scriptures. What do they think of me? Jesus starts with the crowds, he gets a mixed response. Jesus doesn't discuss their response, it seems to me he wasn't especially interested in what they had to say, probably because he knew, that for every person that likes you, you'll find a multitude that hates you. And here's lesson 1: Never mind the crowd, you can never please them all. The fact that Jesus repeats the question when asking his disciples goes to show that, he was far more interested in what they had to say. Lesson 2: The opinion of people closest to you is very important. I believe that's because they know you inside out, they see the real you rather than an image the crowd sees. And even if one of them appreciates who you are (like Peter among the disciples), you're on the right track. And finally, consider the voice from heaven. I do not believe Jesus needed to hear that God the Father loved him and was pleased with Him;his disciples needed to hear it. So God made sure that they heard Him clear, and here we learn the most important lesson: Make sure you are pleasing God, and He'll make sure that those around you know well what they should think of you!
Its about time I start asking myself, 'What does God think of me?'.
