I think one of the most difficult things about being human is that we have an incredible ability to turn good things into things that slowly begin to control us. You can love your career, work incredibly hard, and genuinely want to make a difference. But somewhere along the way, your work can become so connected to your identity that you don’t know who you are without it.
You can love being a parent and want to give your children every opportunity possible. But eventually, their accomplishments, decisions, and successes can become so intertwined with your own sense of worth that you begin carrying things you were never meant to carry.
And the complicated part is that none of those things are necessarily bad. In fact, they’re often some of the very best parts of our lives. The problem is that we can become so attached to the things we love that we slowly lose sight of why we loved them in the first place.
Sometimes we reach a point where we still love what we’re doing, but we don’t particularly love who we’re becoming while doing it. And I wonder if you’ve ever experienced that.
The Subtle Search for Significance
Most of us want our lives to matter. We want to accomplish something meaningful, build relationships that last, and know that the time we’ve been given has made a difference. There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But I think there’s a question underneath those desires that we don’t always take the time to consider. Who am I actually doing all of this for?
Because it’s possible to do incredibly good things while being driven by motivations that slowly begin to damage us. You can serve other people because you genuinely love them, or because you desperately need them to appreciate you. You can pursue excellence because you want to steward your gifts well, or because you’re terrified of being seen as unsuccessful. You can work hard to build something meaningful while quietly allowing that thing to determine your value. And sometimes those motivations become so mixed together that we have a difficult time separating them.
That’s why I think the life of John the Baptist gives us such an extraordinary picture of what it looks like to live with a different kind of freedom.
A Man Who Knew Who He Was
John the Baptist is one of the most fascinating people in the New Testament. He had a significant following, a recognizable ministry, and a message that attracted enormous attention. People were coming to hear him teach and be baptized. He had influence, momentum, and people who were committed to following his leadership. And then Jesus arrived.
In John 1, we see John openly directing people’s attention toward Jesus. At one point, two of John’s own disciples hear him identify Jesus as the Lamb of God, and they leave John to begin following Jesus. Think about how remarkable that is.
John had spent his life preparing people for the arrival of the Messiah, and when Jesus finally arrived, John didn’t desperately try to protect his influence. He wasn’t threatened by the fact that people were leaving his ministry to follow someone else.
He understood that his life and his calling were never ultimately about building something that pointed back to himself. Later, in John 3:30, John makes one of the simplest and most profound statements in Scripture. “He must become greater; I must become less.” I think that’s an extraordinary amount of freedom packed into a single sentence.
John understood who he was, what he had been called to do, and most importantly, who his life was meant to point toward. He didn’t need to become the center of the story because he knew that wasn’t his assignment.
The Freedom of Knowing Who You’re Living For
I think we’ve all met people who seem to have this kind of security. They’re gifted, but they don’t constantly need to remind you how gifted they are. They work hard, but their entire identity isn’t dependent on their accomplishments. They can celebrate someone else’s success without feeling like it somehow diminishes their own. There’s a steadiness about them.
And I think one of the reasons those people stand out is that so many of us are constantly measuring ourselves against something. We’re measuring our accomplishments, our relationships, our finances, our influence, or the way other people perceive us.
But when our identity becomes rooted in the approval of other people, we’re always going to be vulnerable to whatever they think about us. If they celebrate us, we feel incredible. If they criticize us, we’re devastated. If someone else succeeds, we wonder what that means about our own lives. Following Jesus invites us into something different.
It invites us to recognize that our lives are ultimately gifts from God, and that the things we’ve been entrusted with are meant to be lived in a way that honors Him. That doesn’t mean we stop enjoying our families, careers, friendships, or accomplishments. In fact, I think it allows us to enjoy those things more fully because we no longer need them to carry the weight of defining who we are.
Living for an Audience of One
One of the questions I think every follower of Jesus needs to wrestle with is whether we’re genuinely living for God’s approval or simply asking Him to bless the things we’re doing to earn everyone else’s. Because those are very different ways of living.
When we live for the approval of others, we inevitably become protective of the things that give us significance. We struggle to release control, celebrate other people, or acknowledge our limitations. But when we begin to understand that everything we have has ultimately been entrusted to us by God, something begins to change.
We can pursue excellence without being consumed by comparison. We can serve people without requiring their recognition. We can enjoy success without allowing it to become our identity. And we can begin to see our lives as something we get to offer back to the God who gave them to us.
That’s what John understood. His greatest joy wasn’t in making himself more significant. It was in fulfilling the purpose God had given him, even when that meant stepping out of the spotlight.
Putting This Into Practice
I think most of us have mixed motivations in at least a few areas of our lives. The goal isn’t to pretend those motivations don’t exist. It’s to become honest enough about them that we can begin allowing God to reshape them. Here are three ways to start.
1Identify the three things that matter most to you.
Take a few minutes and write down the two or three things that occupy the greatest amount of your emotional energy. Maybe it’s your family, your career, a relationship, your reputation, or something you’re working hard to accomplish. Then ask yourself: Why does this matter so much to me? Keep asking until you begin getting beyond the obvious answers. Try to identify where a healthy desire may have become connected to your need for approval, security, or significance.
2Ask who you’re trying to impress.
Choose one of those areas and consider how your decisions might change if nobody else ever recognized what you accomplished. Would you still pursue it with the same energy? Would you make the same decisions? Would you feel the same sense of satisfaction? This isn’t about abandoning ambition or excellence. It’s about identifying whether the approval of others has quietly become the primary motivation behind something that was originally good.
3Do something meaningful that nobody knows about.
Sometime this week, intentionally do something good without seeking recognition for it. Encourage someone privately, serve someone who can’t repay you, give generously, or do something helpful without making sure people know you did it. Pay attention to what happens inside you when there’s no applause attached. Sometimes the simplest way to begin loosening our dependence on approval is to practice doing good things simply because they’re good. Ultimately, I think the question worth carrying into this week is pretty simple.
If everything I have is a gift from God, am I living as though it’s all mine, or am I living in a way that offers it back to Him? Because there’s an extraordinary amount of freedom that comes when we stop trying to be the center of everything and begin living for the One who actually belongs there.
