For where your
treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Luke 12:34 KJV
I am reading “The Life you’ve always wanted” by John
Ortberg. I have been amazed at how many sand traps are set up in our lives just
by the choices that we make. He brings
to light that some people live in bondage focusing their concern on what others
think. Am I wearing the right
clothes? Did I say the right words? Am I
meeting the right people? “My or my… a
lot to do over little” would be what my Grandmother would say… She constantly
reminded me that you focus your efforts on areas that are within your control.
In the public school classroom, it is so apparent that
children spend more of their time worried about the other students in their
classroom and grade level than they do the curriculum that they are to master.
Being an elementary and middle school teacher, I spend a lot of time as a
mediator with third party gossip, emotional melt downs and social circle
disturbances.
Every day, I would
ask a student, why it was so important what your classmates thought or said
about you? I found that the child’s
success in my classroom was not based wholly on a passing grade on the test BUT
in their acceptance in their social circle of “that days” friends.
This pressure to conform
… the “approval addiction” is a ground level beginning that may lead children to
give in to peer pressure. When a child feels the need to be accepted and may experience
approval addiction, this may lead to the child agreeing to participate in activities
that may or may not morally, ethically or physically fit within the acceptance
of their family unit. Providing the
child with an environment of support that gives emotional, spiritual and social
confidence to be a successful student is a support strategy to assist in
student success and hopefully refocus the child’s efforts so that this student
becomes a successful, God loving adult. Taking the focus off of the fashion
clothes, the newest technology or owning what all all other classmates own is a
step toward independent thinking and confidence.
This “acceptance or approval addiction “is one, that after
30 years in the classroom, I am reminded that where I focus my earthy efforts,
is where my heart is.
Is the approval of others a focus of my attention?
Is criticism used as a resource for self improvement or is
it considered as a source of punishment?
God knows our heart…. He knows our intention. When making
choices, what makes the lasting impact, the love of worldly acceptance or the
love of God?
Freeing myself to
become the person that God can use….
Freeing myself to focus
on God’s desires for my live…. will allow me the choice to be….
Free of worldly "Approval
addiction".
Where is my Treasure and my heart? Do others see this
through my choices and my actions?
