Stop Living For Approval

One careless comment can make you feel like you have to rewrite your whole personality. We’ve been hearing it more and more: people are stressed, tense, and hesitant to speak because they don’t know how others will react. That kind of uncertainty doesn’t just create awkward conversations, it can reshape our choices, our faith, and the way we sleep at night.

I share a short parable about an old man, a boy, and a donkey that nails what’s happening in our culture of snap judgments. No matter what they do, someone criticizes them and they keep adjusting to please the crowd, until the situation turns absurd. It’s a clear picture of what approval-seeking does to us: we start living for reactions instead of truth, and we end up carrying burdens we were never meant to carry.

From there, we ground the lesson in Scripture with Proverbs 29:25 from the Good News Bible: “It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you. But if you trust the Lord, you will be safe.” We talk about moral character before God, why disagreement doesn’t equal hate, and how compromising your convictions robs you of peace. The goal is simple and practical: live today in a way that lets you lay down tonight and say, “God, I did what was right before you,” then rest in His comfort.

If you want a quick daily Christian devotional for stress, anxiety, and staying steady under criticism, listen now. Subscribe to Starting Right, share this with a friend who feels that pressure, and leave a review so more people can find hope and peace through God’s Word.

Transcript

Welcome And Morning Focus

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Good morning. I am Denny Mack, and you're listening to Starting Right. Every weekday morning, I'm going to be here to share stories of life and hope from God's Word. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right.

Stress, Uncertainty, And Fear

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I was speaking with a friend of mine who does a fair bit of counseling, asking him how things are going now with all of the stresses that everybody is facing. He said it's about to be expected, but he did say one of the things that he's seeing now is that there's a lot of added tension and stress in people's lives because they're dealing with a new kind of uncertainty. Some people are at the point where they're afraid to even express their opinion for fear of what somebody else might do or say or how they'll react to them.

The Old Man And Donkey Story

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I came across this story that kind of helps us understand this a bit more. An old man and a boy had to make a long trip to town. So they took their donkey and they started out from their village. The old man and the boy took turns riding the donkey, and they agreed that the first to ride should be the boy, and the old man would walk beside. They heard passers by say, That's terrible. That young boy making the old man walk while he sits and rides on the donkey. The boy and the old man traded places with the old man now riding. Soon they heard a passerby say, How thoughtless that man riding the donkey and making the young boy walk. So the old man pulled the boy onto his lap and they both rode the donkey. Before long a passerby said, How cruel making that donkey carry that load of the man and the boy. When the man and the boy finally arrived at town, they were carrying the donkey.

Why Snap Judgments Hurt Us

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Sometimes we let other people's opinions become so important to us that we are afraid to stand for what we believe is right and for what we know is the truth. The old man and the boy had nothing to be concerned about by the comments of those who were passing by, because they didn't know that the man and the boy would trade places as they were going on their trip and would soon change so that the other person was riding. They simply judged what they saw at the moment, and when they judged what they saw at the moment, they made a proclamation and condemned what they saw without having any of the details or the understanding that they needed to have. There's a lot of that going on out there right now. We sometimes find ourselves being condemned by one thing we say or one thing we do or one opinion that we have. And because of that, uh the norm has become if someone says something they disagree with, they want to attack that. And that's just not the way God wants us to act.

Proverbs 29:25 And Trust

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The Good News Bible puts Proverbs 29, 25 this way. It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you. But if you trust the Lord, you will be safe. We tend to let other people's opinions and other people's judgments of us cause us to question our beliefs and sometimes even compromise our beliefs in what we know is right. I'm not making any kind of a political statement here. I'm talking about our moral character before God. We can't let other people's opinions cause our morality to change, our view of God, our commitment to God, and our desire to love Him and serve Him. There's a truth that we need to understand that it's okay to disagree with someone, and disagreeing with them doesn't mean that you hate them or that we should start screaming at them. When we compromise who we are and we compromise what we know is right and wrong, we can steal peace from ourselves. We cause turmoil within ourselves. And God wants us to have peace and joy and comfort in the middle of everything that's going on.

A Prayer For Peaceful Rest

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He wants to be there for us. So when we go to bed at night, we can lie down and we can say, God, I did what was right before you today. I stayed the way you wanted me to be. And God, I can rest and I thank you for that. So give me peace as I sleep. Lord, bless my sleep and let me wake up refreshed in you to know that I can face tomorrow, no matter what goes on, no matter who may disagree with me, no matter who I may disagree with, but if I maintain my focus on you, O Lord, I will have peace, and your peace will guide and strengthen me. Have a great day, my friends. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Thank you for listening today. And I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.