A SPRINKLE OF GLITTER AND SHINY RED SHOES
Fearing people is a dangerous trap,
But to trust the LORD means safety.
Proverbs 29:25
My heart catches, early one morning, at these words.
Over and over in the past few months, my Father has been leaning these truths into my soul… easing them in, wedging His ways past my resistance…
This morning it begins to make sense, drawing me in for a closer look.
To fear, in this Biblical sense, means to be in awe of, to desire to please.
And isn’t that just what entraps me time and time again?
This innate craving for acceptance?
For approval?
This not-so-subtle sense that if only everybody likes me, or notices me, or just thinks I’m good, then surely I must be.
Isn’t that why I dress the way I do? Slightly understated, not too loud or bright or glittery… when deep down I love anything shiny and grand, secretly admiring the woman walking by in red high heels with that confident swagger in her steps…
Why can’t I wear that?
And I can but I won’t because people might laugh or point or disapprove. And that, after all, would be a Terrible Thing.
Why is my heart so easily crushed when someone criticizes me? Or so much as hints at disapproval?
Why does it freeze me up when someone acts irritated with me? Why does that matter so much?
Here’s why: I fear people.
That desire to please is holding me in its too tight grip— like stuffing myself in a size too small.
And maybe I shouldn’t keep sucking it in to try to fit anymore.
Maybe I should just be me.
And maybe that’s just what my Father is waiting for.
The chance to show me that He likes the way He wired me up. A woman who loves glitter and gloss and shiny red convertibles, yet craves quiet corners of all aloneness.
This strange mix that is me.
Maybe what He’s really waiting for is this second part of Proverbs 29:5… but to trust the LORD means safety.
Because maybe safety is what I’m really all about…. and maybe keeping myself safe from criticism and disapproval is not my job... maybe it’s His…and maybe He’s not all that worried about what other people think of me…and maybe He doesn’t want me to be either… because maybe He has work for me to do… and maybe that work involves loving people no matter what…
Even critics.
Here’s the only thing I know for sure in all my maybe’s and what-if’s:
Fearing people is a dangerous trap,
But to trust the LORD means safety.
Proverbs 29:25
And if you’ve figured some of this out lately, do you have any words of wisdom for me? I think its time I learned what the Father has been trying to teach me for a long, long time.
From my heart,
Diane