I, Candace Robbins, get anxious when others discuss that which pleases or displeases them which I may have contributed to.
I, Candace Robbins, value the approval of certain individuals from whom I expect to receive certain affirmation or encouragement.
I, Candace Robbins, hate being rejected and can’t stand the thought that someone is upset with me.
My fear of being rejected paralyzes me from trusting others or developing deep friendships.
I, Candace Robbins, do not share my faith because I don’t want to be criticised or make anyone feel uncomfortable or offended.
I, Candace Robbins, overreact to criticism by dwelling too long on it.
God has been trying to get me to realize that I have put approval over him for a very long time, but my eyes have been blind to it. I have buried it so far inside me that it is going to take some rugged, daily battles to cling to the true promises of God’s word.
Looking back in my journal I can see that at Training Camp, when this whole journey began on the World Race, I finally started to give God the room to work to open my eyes to my idols. I knew some of the symptoms and habits; sex, porn, finding value in what guys said about me, running from Christian friends, and needing people to think I am awesome because I didn’t believe it myself. These things had formed in my life, and I knew I had to figure out the root cause before I could truly conquer my sins. I started to pray then and there that God would reveal to me the deep dark places of self-doubt and doubt in Him.
The journey has left me crying in a mall, on the side of a mountain, at kitchen tables, in my hammock, in a restaurant, on roof tops, and a number of other places. All along my teammates have been there to pick me up, speak life into me, and challenge me to be more vulnerable. That word vulnerable made me crazy and still does from time to time because I have been more vulnerable on the Race than I have ever been in my life. How could I be more vulnerable? My fear of rejection had paralyzed me from truly trusting others and developing deep friendships. To me it has felt like I have been opening up completely – running into the freedom, but my awesome teammates and Squad have seen the truth – that I have only been wiggling my toe and that I have so much more to discover about myself and how approval has controlled my life.
In Vietnam, one of my team mates gave me a vision she had of me. It was a mirror that was cracked and had many different pictures of me. She said that she thought it was representing that there are many different parts of me, and they all have to be put together to see who God really sees me as and to not focus too much on one part. I said thanks, but I didn’t really understand it. That is until God lead me to a sermon called “Seduced by the Idol of Approval” by Mark Vroegop. In this sermon he stated “If I want approval I want the mirror of other people to show me a reflection that I want to see of myself. With an approval addiction it is a carnival of mirrors. Some will stretch you out. Some make you fat. Some make you short. Others make you tall. You move from one mirror to the next and you end up not knowing what you truly look like or who you are anymore.”
I have been unaware that approval has become my dominant idol. I am now trying to see through its lies and use the gospel on my heart.
Fighting Promise with Promise
- When I begin to think too much about what others think of me, I fight by faith with the promise, “What shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).
- When I begin to crave the affirmation or approval of others, I fight by faith with the promise, “Therefore we make it our aim…to be pleasing to Him” (2 Cor. 5:9).
- When I’m tempted to think that God has forgotten me, and I start to place my hope in man, I fight by faith with the promise, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength. Whose heart departs from the Lord….Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is” (Jer. 17:5,7).
- When I begin to worry about what will happen to me if I do what fearing God requires, I fight by faith with the promise, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
- When I fear that people will cause crushing circumstances in my life, I fight by faith with the promise, “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor. 9:8).
- When I’d rather be quiet than be misquoted, misrepresented, or mocked behind my back, I fight by faith with the promise, “I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10).
- When I feel like a failure, or when I have disappointed someone despite my best efforts, I fight by faith with the promise, “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. 17:10).
- When the fear of man has gotten the best of me, and I want to strike back in sinful anger, I fight by faith with the promise, “for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).
- When I feel like the approval of others is more valuable than God’s, I fight by faith with the promise, “…esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt…for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:26-27)
