A detective working on a criminal case always has questions that need to be answered in order to piece together and solve the puzzle of the crime. So too, you need to ask questions in order to piece together the puzzle of what makes us fear others and what they will think. We wrote about this fear of others and how it impacted us in areas such as clothing, looks, and friends. But how do you detect it? How do you get to the root of the problem?

Let’s dig deeper with the following questions taken from Edward Welch’s book, When People are Big and God is Small:

• Have you ever struggled with peer pressure, being forced to con­form to your friends or people around you? “Peer pressure” is simply another way of saying, “fear of man.”
• Are you over-committed? Do you find it hard to say “no” even when wisdom tells you that you should? You are a “people pleaser,” another way of saying “fear of man.”
• Do you need something from your friends? Do you “need” your friend to listen to you? Respect you? God is pleased when we are good friends for one another, but don’t let the needs that you think your friends can meet control you, otherwise your friend will become your idol.
• Is self-esteem or self-image a critical concern for you? If it is, chances are that your life revolves around what others think. You reverence or fear their opinions. You need them to buttress your sense of well-being and identity. You need them to fill you up.
• Are you always second-guessing decisions because of what other people might think? Are you afraid of making mistakes that will make you look bad in other people’s eyes?
• Do you feel empty or meaningless? Do you experience “love hun­ger”? Here again, if you need others to fill you, you are controlled by them.
• Do you get easily embarrassed? If so, people and their perceived opinions probably define you. You exalt the opinions of others to the point where you are ruled by them.
• Do you ever lie, especially the little white lies? What about cover-ups where you are technically lying with your mouth? Lying and other forms of living in the dark are usually ways to make ourselves look better before other people. They also serve to cover our shame before them.
• Are you jealous of other people? You are controlled by them and their possessions.
• Do other people often make you angry or depressed? Are they making you crazy? If so, they are probably the controlling center of your life.
• Do you avoid people? If so, even though you might not say that you need people, you are still controlled by them.
• Have all these descriptions missed the mark? When you compare yourself with other people, do you feel good about yourself? Per­haps the most dangerous form of the fear of man is the “successful” fear of man. Such people think they have made it. They have more than other people. They feel good about themselves. But their lives are still defined by other people rather than God.

These questions help us to detect the fear of others. Did you find that one or more of these questions resonated with you? Did you see yourself in them? Use these questions to examine your relationships, but especially your own heart. They take you to the root of the problem.

But how do you deal with solving this problem of fearing others? In the next issue, we will look together at the solution to the fear of man and what must be done to overcome it. It is a universal problem, plaguing every one of us, but has only one solution!