The Most Feared People in the World
My incurable addiction to people-watching resulted in me spending most of an afternoon in a dress shop so expensive I don’t think there was a single item there that I could buy without a loan or selling one of my children. It actually became an epiphany for me. I watched some very intelligent and talented women whose lives had been consumed by the opinions of others shop for clothes to wear to events they did not want to attend in order to impress people, many of whom they did not like and some they did not even know. I came away with what I think are two major truths about life as we know it.
First: It is amazing how much time, effort, expense, and too much of our very being is governed by “what will someone else think?”
Second: The most feared people in the world are a people we call “They.”
The author of the Biblical Proverbs said, “The fear of man sets a snare.” The Message version says, “Living for human opinion debilitates.” Proverbs 29:25
Too often we live in a society dominated by “What will they think? What will they say? What will they do?
We don’t even know who “They” are.
After leading a grief conference in a church setting a couple pulled me away from the milling crowd and in a low voice began telling me their grandson was in jail on drug charges and they were desperate. They needed someone to support them and walk with them through the crisis. I ask why we were talking in almost whispers and they said, “Oh these fellow church members are the last people we would want to know.” When I suggested their pastor, it brought the same response. The fear of “They” was far greater than their pain.
“They” govern how we talk, how we walk, how we live, how we spend our money to impress or not spend it to keep from being criticized.
A woman whose husband had died really needed a new car, but she said, “I would not dare buy one, I can just hear them (the plural of they) saying he isn’t even cold and there she is spending all of his money.”
A people called “They” are wrecking our very society and polarizing us into chaos and disunity. There is a new conspiracy theory every morning. Almost every one is based on some vague group called “They.”
“They are trying to put in a new world order.”
“They are putting chips in vaccines."
“They are socialist or communist.”
“They decided getting people to wear mask would turn them into malleable zombies.”
Sometimes the “They” are just called “The Government”. Still no idea who this is.
I don’t know about anybody else but frankly I am tired of listening to it and ready to say, if all you know is what someone called “They” said or is doing then just shut your mouth I am not going to listen. My response is best summed up in the last words Clark Gable spoke in “Gone With the Wind.”
Then I am going to take the following approaches.
I am going to try to live by the statement, “Your opinion of me is none of my business.” Nothing I can do about what you think so it is your problem not mine.
I am going to worry about and deal only with things I can do something about. I cannot solve the political war we are now engaged in. I cannot change minds already set in stone so I will not try. All I can actually do is be well-informed and vote. I will leave the arguing and the spreading of rumors to those who seem to get their kicks from being afraid and spreading it.
Most important to me, I will spend my life trying to answer the phrase we quote in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come thy will be done ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” No political party, no form of government nor laws can do that. It takes us Christians realizing our loyalty and commitment belongs to a kingdom not of this world and once again give ourselves to the task of spreading love where there is hate, truth where there are lies, acceptance where there is intolerance, and help where there is pain and need. “They” did not declare that, HE did.