In my walk with God recently, I have been exploring the topic of Fear of Man (which I abbreviate as “FOM”). This sin pattern has and does beset my life. So, I’d like to share with you my thoughts as I explore and fight it.
What It Is
Some of you are familiar with the concept of FOM, but it is nonetheless a slippery sin, requiring a good definition. Unfortunately I do not have a perfect definition of it. Until I understand it better, my working definition is “valuing the opinions of others more than the opinion of God.”

Though this is (I think :)) what FOM is, our culture rarely calls FOM for what it is. We use myriad euphemisms to make ourselves feel better about our sin. We use names such as “shyness,” “self-consciousness,” “ego,” and many others. FOM is anything that makes you look to …