Caring and Yet Not Caring

   For those of you who don’t know I am a deep thinker. I love to learn new things and think about many different things. There is one question I have always struggled with. I have posed this question to many of my friends and people who I look up to and none of them had the answer. The question was: how do we care about others but not care about what they think about things and us?

   It has literally taken me years to figure out this answer and I will explain to you why. For so long I said I care about others, because that is what God calls us to do. And, I still do care about others. But, I never understood how I could care about someone and not care what they think about me. I mean if someone would say that they think I’m too sarcastic. Should I just say to them “well I don’t care what you think?” If I did that I may lose my friendship with that person.

   But, I have finally figured out the answer to this conundrum, which is actually quite simple. The answer is to have peace in God. Let me explain this answer. If someone would say to me “you are too sarcastic.” I have two choices. If I don’t have peace in God, I could let it go to my head and try to change for them. But, if I do have peace in God then I can just say “okay.” I don’t have to say anything more because if I do then I could either hurt myself or that person. If I know who I am in God, and I have peace in him, it doesn’t matter what other people say about me.

   Now, there is a little thing we need to remember in here. Sometimes what people say about us is true and they are trying to keep us accountable. So, when someone does say something about us we need to reflect on if they are correct or not. Good friends will try to keep us accountable and make us better.

   There you have it. When people say things about us we have two options. We can either change ourselves over and over again for others. Or, we can know who we are in God. But, we need to reflect on what that person said. If the person really does care about you he may just be trying to keep you accountable.

   So, do you care too much about what others think about you? Do you know who you are in God? Has anyone ever tried to keep you accountable and you haven’t listened to them? Are you keeping others accountable?

   John 13:34-35, John 1:12, Galatians 6:1-5