We are so trained to search for and pursue success. It’s incredibly easy to have an ongoing identity crisis that is simply the result of trying to present the best you that is not even real. Social media has empowered all ages of people to post amazing expressions that look like we have figured life out. We’ve not. The more we pretend we have the more empty we become.

Our devotion to the presentation of our reputation can easily undermine our need to be committed to developing our character. Character defects grow for years beneath the surface of our lives. We prefer to project the image of adequacy rather than taking an honest and unsettling look at ourselves. Even if we present our best smile, it doesn’t work out that well if we have something in our teeth. Only a true friend will tell you when something’s just not right. Truly, it is not good for man to be alone in so many ways!

Your reputation and your character can be evaluated by considering how what others say about you compares to what God says about you? It doesn’t even make sense why we would strive to be validated by someone who only lives about 80 years while neglecting the opinion of Eternal God?

Until we truly know who we are before God we will waste our lives in efforts to prove who we are before man. It’s not until we learn to stop living for the praise of others that disapproval no longer slows us down. God’s opinion is the only opinion to live for and his opinion of you purposed gifts, which are planted in you. Be true to who God desires for you to be and you’ll learn to truly manifest yourself to your world. When you do this you and the world around you will flourish in wonderful ways.