Whose Voice Matters?

My mind often latches onto a very small happening or idea and then follows it all the way through what seems like a naturally developing story.  Some would call this daydreaming, I suppose.  Usually, I try to cut off these stories because they are rarely fruitful. But a few nights ago, God used one of my little "episodes" to provide some much needed insight and correction. 

I was convincing Oliver to put on a pull-up to go to bed and started thinking about how he might be embarrassed by that if he were to spend the night with friends.  And I imagined him coming home and telling me how his friends had made fun of him and how he'd been embarrassed.  And naturally, I saw myself telling him that he shouldn't worry about what they said; I say there is nothing wrong with wearing a pull-up at his age.  And I could feel what I really do feel sometimes in those situations - the desperate sense of "What can I do to make you understand that it is absurd for you to listen to the voices and opinions of your little 5 year-old friends over my voice?  My voice, what I say about you, is the voice you can trust! 

And then I had the overwhelming sense of God the Father playing my own words back to me from His perspective.  And those words are spot on.  Why can I not grasp the absurdity of my caring about what other humans say about me more than I care about what my God, my Heavenly Father, my Maker, my Judge has to say about me?  Ouch.

So many times growing up, we all made certain choices to "fit in," to get our peers to like us.  And oftentimes, our parents told us not to worry about what those people said.  They told us that in a few years, that wouldn't matter to us anymore or that we'd forget all about it.  Well, in eternity, you can bet we won't be concerned about what our peers said about us at work or at school or on the court or on the field or even on the stage.  Only one voice will matter.  And that voice of God is the only one that matters now.  It's just harder to keep that in mind right now when the things we experience with our five senses can seem to be so much more real and present. 

Psalm 56:4 says,

"In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me?" (ESV)

God made this idea much more real to me recently.  I'm praying that He continues to do so for me and for you.