I have been trying to live my life in such a way that I no longer dwell in a state of stress, but dwell in a knowledge of Christ and His constant care for me. Some of this means changing the things I say. It is possible that I often sound more stressed than I actually feel. I will make side comments about finances or difficulties with broken things I used to rely on. I do such things often for the fact that it makes a funnier story or because I am hoping for a certain kind of response. Which would then be another thing I need to adjust. What would my life look like if I wasn’t hoping for a laugh or a comment of concerned sympathy?

All this goes to show just how much I hope to change inside. I want to be content with God’s attention, to not overstate my case, to let the sense that God is taking care of me on the inside show on the outside. Sometimes I can even believe my own words or at least they can distract me from keeping my mind and eyes on Christ just by hearing myself say them. Because then I think about the words. I think about whether they are true or not, whether I got the kind of response I was hoping for, often I don’t. And then, if I am not paying attention, I will try to double down to get the desired response.

But how much better would it be to have a habit of caring more about what God thinks? There isn’t that immediate sense of connection with the person next to me, but there would be no let down afterward either. I could speak freely and plainly about all that is true and I would never regret what I said, how I said it, or what things I was really implying by it.

It is hard to live with God in mind for the simple reason that the approval and good feelings don’t tend to come in the moment. In some cases, we have to wait years and years under the hope that we will be approved of one day. It is easy to see all the failures now and to let them occupy our minds rather than treating ourselves in the way that we have hopefully learned to treat others.

Just as we don’t live for the approval and applause of others, neither do we live for the approval and applause of ourselves, and at least for me, myself is quite willing to go overboard on both approval and condemnation and at the wrong times every time. But how do we live when we don’t live for our own sense of success or approval?

It’s odd too, because we have come to learn that whenever we feel we shouldn’t do something, like steal a candy bar or hit a sibling, that we should listen to that ‘voice.’ Whenever we feel a sense of pride at accomplishing something well it seems that we ought to feel that way too. And so, we can live with both feelings as our guide. Whenever we feel disappointed at ourselves, we take it to heart and the opposite is true too. But we are not meant to blindly trust those feelings either. We can feel truly disappointed with ourselves all the while doing exactly what God would have us do. We can feel really good about getting stuff done without seeing how we are treating others while we do it. In both cases neither feeling is an accurate reflection of the way God sees us.

As I have gotten older, the phrase Paul said about not even judging himself has become so much more profound. Really the best way to live is to act as much as I can in the way God would have me act, to think in the way God would have me think, and leave the results and the approval up to Him. It can be hard, but living with myself when I am disappointed with myself is probably harder. This is why life with Christ, with His burden, will always be lighter, more peaceful, and more restful for our souls.