Most of us would probably say that other people's opinions do not control us. But our lives can reveal how much influence those opinions actually have. We care about being respected. We want to be accepted. We want people to think well of us, and we do not enjoy being misunderstood or rejected. Sometimes this is simply part of living with other people. We were made for relationships, and it is natural to value the people around us. The problem begins when their opinions become so important that they start determining how we live.
A person may know what he believes is right but decide not to do it because he is afraid of what people will say. Another may remain in a situation that is damaging because leaving would disappoint others. Someone may choose a career mainly because it carries status, while another may spend years trying to maintain an image of success that no longer represents the reality of his life. We can become so concerned with how we are seen that we gradually lose sight of who we actually are.
When Being Seen Becomes More Important Than Being Known
There is a difference between being seen and being known.
Being seen can be controlled. We can decide what people see, what we tell them, what we post, what we hide, and which parts of our lives we allow into public view. Being known is different. To be known means that someone sees beyond the presentation and understands something of what is actually happening within us.
This is one reason approval can become so powerful. We can receive approval for a version of ourselves that is not completely true. People may admire our confidence while we are privately insecure. They may think we are successful while we are struggling with a sense of failure. They may see a person who appears to have everything together while we know how much effort goes into maintaining that appearance.
We can become very skilled at presenting ourselves in ways that make people think well of us. The danger is that we may eventually become more concerned with managing people's perception of us than with dealing honestly with who we are.
Social media has made this easier to see, but the problem is much older than social media. Human beings have always wanted to be admired, accepted, and respected. The platforms have changed; the human heart has not.
The Approval We Seek Cannot Carry the Weight We Give It
Why does approval matter so much to us? At a deeper level, we want to know that we matter. We want to know that our lives have value, that we are acceptable, that we have not failed, and that there is something about us worth loving. These are not foolish desires. They point to something real within us.
But we often look to other people to answer questions they were never capable of answering completely.
People can encourage us, love us, appreciate us, correct us, and speak truth into our lives. Their words can matter greatly. But no human being knows us completely, and no human being has the authority to determine our ultimate worth.
The person who praises us today may criticise us tomorrow. The people who admire us may eventually forget us. The crowd can celebrate one person today and move on to someone else tomorrow. Even those who genuinely love us are limited in what they can know and what they can give.
If our sense of worth rests entirely on human approval, we will always be vulnerable to the next opinion.
This is why a person can receive plenty of praise and still feel insecure. Approval can satisfy us for a moment without settling the deeper question of who we are.
God Looks Deeper Than We Do
The Bible addresses this problem by taking us beneath appearance.
When Samuel went to the house of Jesse to anoint the next king of Israel, he saw Eliab and assumed that his appearance and stature made him the obvious choice. But God told him: “Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).
Human beings naturally judge what they can see. God sees the heart.
That does not mean that everything outward is meaningless. It means that outward appearance can never tell the whole truth about a person. A reputation is not the same thing as character. An impressive life is not necessarily a righteous life. Public success does not tell us what is happening within a person's heart.
This is important because it means that the deepest truth about our lives cannot be settled by public opinion.
Other people may know something about us, but God knows us completely.
Psalm 139 describes this kind of knowledge. God knows when we sit down and when we rise. He understands our thoughts and is acquainted with all our ways. There is nowhere we can go beyond His presence or hide ourselves from His knowledge.
At first, that may sound uncomfortable. If we are used to carefully managing how other people see us, the thought of being completely known can feel threatening. But there is also something deeply hopeful about it.
God does not love an image of us. He knows the person behind the image.
The Fear of People Can Quietly Govern a Life
Proverbs 29:25 says, “The fear of man bringeth a snare.”
That is a powerful description because a snare does not always look like a trap when a person first encounters it. It may begin with something as ordinary as wanting to be accepted. Gradually, however, the desire for acceptance can begin to shape our decisions until we find ourselves afraid to act without first considering how people will respond.
A person may know that he should apologise but refuse because he does not want to appear weak. Someone may know that he is wrong but continue defending himself because admitting the truth would damage his reputation. Another may know that he needs to change direction but remain where he is because he is afraid of disappointing people.
The Deeper Problem Is Not Simply Insecurity
The fear of people can make us protect an image at the expense of the truth. And once protecting the image becomes more important than facing the truth, we are no longer as free as we think we are.
It would be easy to reduce all of this to self-esteem. We could tell people to believe in themselves, stop worrying about what others think, and become more confident. Some of that advice may be useful, but it does not reach the deepest issue.
The Bible does not merely tell us to become more confident in ourselves. It asks us to examine what our lives are ultimately built upon.
If I need the approval of other people to know that I am valuable, then I have placed something created in a position it cannot sustain. If I need success to know that my life matters, then success has become more than a good thing; it has become a source of identity. If I need admiration to feel secure, then admiration has begun to function like a master.
The issue is not simply that we care what people think. The issue is what their opinions have become to us.
Something that was meant to be one part of life has become the foundation on which we are trying to stand.
What If We Were Looking for Something No Human Being Can Give Us?
Perhaps this is why the desire for approval never seems to disappear completely. We keep looking for the moment when someone will finally say enough, when our achievements will finally prove something, when enough people will recognise us, or when we will finally become the kind of person nobody can reject.
But even when we receive what we wanted, another question eventually appears. Is it enough?
The applause fades. The achievement becomes ordinary. Someone else receives the attention. The relationship changes. The people whose opinions mattered most move on with their own lives.
We can spend years trying to obtain from people what only God can ultimately provide: the assurance that our lives have meaning because they come from Him and belong to Him.
This is why the question of approval eventually becomes a question about God. If He created us, then He knows what we were made for. If He knows us completely, then His judgment of our lives matters more than the opinions of people who see only part of us. And if our deepest problem is not merely insecurity but our separation from God, then no amount of human approval can solve it.
This is where the Christian message becomes more serious than self-improvement.
Being Known by God Changes the Question
The gospel does not tell us to become impressive enough for God to accept us. It tells us that we have a problem that our own efforts cannot solve.
Scripture does not allow us to build our identity around the sins of others while forgetting that we too stand in need of God's mercy.
That statement removes the usual comparison between ourselves and other people. We can no longer make ourselves feel secure by finding someone who appears worse than we are. The relevant question is not whether I am better than another person. It is whether I am right with God.
That is a much deeper question because God is not judging the image we have constructed. He sees the heart.
Yet the fact that God sees us completely is not merely a reason to fear Him. The gospel announces that the God who knows us is also the God who came toward us in Christ.
Jesus did not come to help us construct a better public image. He came to reconcile us to God.
That changes the foundation of a person's life.
Jesus Did Not Live for the Approval of the Crowd
The life of Jesus shows us what it looks like to live from a different centre.
There were times when crowds welcomed Him and times when they rejected Him. People praised Him, misunderstood Him, questioned Him, opposed Him, and eventually demanded His death. Yet His direction did not change with the opinion of the crowd because His life was governed by the will of the Father.
This did not make Him indifferent to people. He cared deeply about them. He had compassion on the sick, welcomed the rejected, wept with those who mourned, and served those around Him.
But He did not confuse loving people with living for their approval.
That distinction matters. We can love people without allowing their opinions to become our master. We can listen to correction without becoming controlled by criticism. We can receive encouragement without making praise our source of identity.
Whose Voice Has the Final Word?
Jesus shows us a life that is secure enough to love people without needing to be controlled by them.
Every person eventually has to decide which voices will have authority in his life.
There will always be people telling us what success should look like, what we should value, what we should pursue, and what kind of person we should become. Some of those voices may contain wisdom. Others may simply reflect the fears, ambitions, or expectations of the people speaking.
If we allow every opinion to define us, we will never become settled. We will constantly adjust ourselves to the expectations of whoever happens to be watching.
But if God has created us, then His truth must have a greater place in our lives than the changing opinions of people.
This does not mean ignoring everyone else. It means learning to distinguish between listening to people and being governed by them.
There Is Freedom in Being Known by God
Sometimes another person's criticism may reveal something we need to change. At other times, we may be criticised precisely because we have chosen what is right. Wisdom is not learning how to make everyone approve of us. It is learning what is true and having the courage to live according to it.
Perhaps the freedom we are looking for is not found in becoming a person whom everyone approves of. That person does not exist.
Someone will misunderstand you. Someone will disagree with you. Someone will think you are not good enough. Someone will fail to recognise what you have done. Even if many people admire you, there will still be moments when their approval is absent.
If your identity depends on the approval of people, you will always be trying to maintain something that can be taken away.
But there is another possibility. You can begin with the God who already knows you.
You do not have to pretend before Him. You do not have to construct an image that will impress Him. You can come honestly, because He already knows what is true about you.
And the Christian message is that this God has not simply looked at humanity from a distance. He has acted in history through Jesus Christ to bring sinners back to Himself.
You may have spent much of your life trying to be seen, accepted, and approved by people. Perhaps the deeper search is to know the One who already sees you.
But you do not have to build your identity on an audience that can change its mind tomorrow. God already sees what people cannot see, and the Christian message is that the God who knows us completely has come toward us in Jesus Christ.
You may have spent more of your life than you realised trying to be accepted. Maybe you have made decisions because of what people would think. Maybe you have hidden parts of yourself because you were afraid that being fully known would mean being rejected. Perhaps you have achieved many things and still find yourself wondering whether you are enough.
The issue reaches deeper than, “What do people think about me?” It becomes, “What does God say is true about me, and am I willing to come to Him?”