No More Stressing

By Nikki Boyle

What is it about you that makes you you?

How much time do you spend worrying about what other people think? Do you wake up on Tuesdays and Thursdays and spend a little more time on your hair just because you-know-who will be sitting behind you in first hour? Just face it: you want to be noticed. Everyone does. Everyone wants to be liked. I’m sure you’ve imagined your teacher singling you out for getting the highest grade in the class. You’ve daydreamed about the girl you like telling all her friends about how great you are. You dream all this up and then believe it because you think that is what makes you unique.

Or maybe you’ve given up. Have you stopped caring about what you look like or how well you do in school because your buddy list only has a dozen names, and half of them are family? You get depressed, don’t want to go to school, feel sick to your stomach, and can’t finish your homework. You hate being alone. Are you defined by what people think of you?

It’s amazing how much of our attention is focused on what other people think. When we have 300 friends on Facebook but have spoken to only a fraction of them in real life, there’s something terribly wrong. Our concentration on what other people think is just plain selfish. God didn’t create us to be so obsessed with us. Think about Adam and Eve. What’s the first thing that they did after eating the apple? They covered up their nakedness and hid because they were ashamed. They were ashamed because, for the first time, their focus was on them rather than God. Maybe Eve thought her butt looked too big or Adam thought his gut could use some work. Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t a call to run around naked. But it is a call to remember what our Lord intends for us. It’s a call back to Eden before all the attention was on us, when the footsteps in the garden (Genesis 3:8) weren’t a terror but the greatest joy one could imagine. It’s a call to live the way God created us, where all of our attention is on God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and no matter what we do or what we look like matters in the least.

What makes us us isn’t how popular we are. Who we are is more than makeup, sports, grades, and the one you’d like to date. Thankfully, our identity—what makes us us—is found in Christ. What goes for Christ goes for you. Think back to Jesus’ Baptism. The heavens were opened, the Spirit descended, and God the Father said, “This is my Son, whom I love, with Him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16–17). What goes for Christ goes for you. The Father speaks those same words to you. You are His Son. He loves you. And no matter what brand of clothing you wear, or how many groups you belong to on Facebook, or how badly you’ve screwed things up trying to be Miss Popular, it is with you that He is well pleased.

And so when it’s all about Christ, and not you, you’re finally free. No more stressing over who you’ll take to homecoming or even the zit on your forehead. No more feeling sick about not being liked, or being rejected, or feeling unloved. No more defining yourself by what others think or say. What makes you you is Christ. He put His name on you at your Baptism. And He took all your fears of not being popular onto Himself. He was lonely for you. The few friends He had deserted Him, and there was no one to fight His case before Pilate. He did this so that you will never be alone. With Christ you are free to have friends for their sake: to love them and care for them and be little Christs to them. When Christ defines you, you then run in Eden without shame, focusing all you have on loving Christ and serving your neighbor. What makes you unique is your identity in Jesus, the baby born in Bethlehem. And in Him you are fully yourself—unique, popular, and loved— because what goes for Christ goes for you.

A wife, mother, and deaconess graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Mrs. Nikki Boyle can be reached at boylenj@ctsfw.edu.