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 others’ approval for your satisfaction in life.

How It Affects US

FOM’s effects are as wide-ranging as its names. Some have a mere aversion to large groups because of FOM (For those of you who struggle with FOM in only this way, I’m not trying to downplay the significance of this; it’s just a relatively “mild” effect.). Others are gripped with terror whenever they meet new people. It’s almost as if each different person is affected by FOM in a different way.

I personally am greatly affected by FOM. It grips me, depriving me of great opportunities. I have had an instance of this in the past few weeks. As you may know, I am learning Danish. My dad found out a Danish student attends the university in our town, so we invited her over to dinner.

The intention was to give me an opportunity to practice spoken Danish, but then FOM got a hold of me. I was too afraid of what she would think of my Danish to use it to the full range of my ability. This cost me a very rare opportunity. All because of my fear of man! This may sound like a bit of a weird example for those of you that don’t love learning languages as much as I do, but it made me furious with myself.

So What’re We Gonna Do About It?

When dealing with FOM, it’s very tempting to just say,”I’ll deal with that later,” and shove it back in the closet of our hearts. But we can’t. We have to deal with this, or else it will continue take over our lives. Ed Welch (of CCEF) wrote a book called When People Are Big and God is Small that deals with this issue. I have started reading it and found it superb so far. I hope that as I continue through it, it will provide me with much needed tools for battling my FOM. I invite you to join me in learning about FOM and how to fight it by reading this book and wrestling with the issues it presents.

I’m writing this post as an intro into a series about FOM that I’ll be writing over the coming weeks (OK, I’m a slow reader: months :)). I hope to record my thoughts and thing I’ve learned here as I embark on this journey. First, here are some questions for thought and/or discussion:

1. Have you observed FOM working in your life? To what extent?
2. What are some other ways that our culture masks the sin of Fear of Man?
3. How willing are you to submit your life to God in fighting this?

Well, what are we waiting for? Lets dive in!