When People are Big and God is Small

This book is about the fear of man. “Fear of man is such a part of our human fabric that we should check for a pulse if someone denies it” (p.17). Welch identifies three areas where we fear man. We fear being exposed, we fear that other people will see our sin, our shame (this is identified as “low self-esteem” in our culture). We fear rejection from people. We fear that people can hurt us. Ultimately, we fear people because we think that they have something that we need: people provide acceptance, people provide love, people provide self-worth. We fear (worship, hold in awe) man instead of having the fear of the Lord. “[We worship people] because we perceive that they have power to give us something. We think they can bless us.” (p. 45) And as a result, people control us.

With the rise of the belief that we are morally good and the belief that truth is feelings came the belief in psychological needs. We are people who have psychological needs that must be filled or we are unhappy. We are leaky love-cups who must constantly be replenished. The Christian community has changed this slightly: we are leaky love-cups who must get our love from God. However, this view is not biblical: Welch examines Scripture to see if he can find support for psychological needs, but cannot find them.

Welch does find that we have some needs. We have the biological need for food and shelter, and we have a spiritual need for forgiveness, but the Bible mentions no psychological needs. There are some fairly universal desires, but our psychological “needs” are usually more properly termed “lusts”, and God does not intend to fill them. In fact, He cannot, because they are unfillable by their very nature. Instead, He intends to destroy them. Our needs are really the “I wants” that started with Adam’s sin.

We need to be growing in our fear of the Lord. We need to see the glory of God and be in awe of his greatness. We need to see his holiness, and be in fear of His wrath. We need to be saved from His wrath through the death of Jesus for our sins. We need to see God’s love in providing for our greatest need (our sin) at the expense of His son. God’s love is costly; ours must be like it. Welch ends with several chapters of examples in growing in the fear of the Lord and growing in love for each other.

Instead of psychological needs to be filled, Welch identifies that we have a need to love others. We we created in the image of God, who is always outward focused, and our task as Christians is to image God. In some sense, we need others to accomplish this task, because it is too big for one person. And we do have a need to know God’s love (not to be filled by it, although that will happen). But primarily we need to love others more and need to be loved less. We are not leaky-cups; we are pitchers that are overflowing with God’s love and blessing others.

This book collects all the things I have been learning about God over the past few years. Unfortunately, that meant that is was not all that life-changing when I read it. However, I did come from the leaky-cup philosophy, and it has been challenging to think of my deeply held desires not as needs, but as lusts. Welch notes that Larry Crabb, a well-known Christian author and counselor, subscribes to the leaky-cup philosophy, which might explain why I felt that Finding God did not have any answers—the answer is that our desire to be filled is the desire of our lusts and that our duty to God is to love others the way He has loved us. Certainly When People are Big and God is Small provides answers; unfortunately, the answer isn’t one we necessarily want to hear. I’d rather blame God for not filling my needs (although, empirically, that isn’t a helpful approach). But as much as I’d rather not have to put to death my deep desires and seek God alone, it does correspond with what the Bible says. Welch’s approach of putting our lusts to death, needing to be loved less and to love more, of being outward focused is eminently biblical, practical, and helpful.

Quotes

“The most radical treatment for the fear of man is the fear of the Lord. God must be bigger to you than people are.” (p. 19)
“[We worship people] because we perceive that they have power to give us something. We think they can bless us.” (p. 45)
Marriage is not about filling each others needs. (If it is, we will feel really devastated when the other doesn’t meet our needs)
“To elevate our desire for love, impact, and other pleasures to the point where they become needs or longings is to sinfully exalt desire so that it becomes a delirium of desire. ... This explains why Christ is sometimes not enough for us. If I stand before him as a cup waiting to be filled with psychological satisfactions, I will never feel quite full. Why? First because my lusts are boundless; by their very nature, they can’t be filled. Second, because he intends to break the cup of psychological need (lusts), not fill it.” (p. 149)
“In need psychology, the natural reason to praise God is for what he has done for me. This is okay, but it doesn’t go far enough. From the Bible’s perspective, God deserves praise simply because he is God.” (p. 154)
“This means that the essence of imaging God is to rejoice in God’s presence, to love him above all else, and to live for his glory, not our own. The most basic question of human existence becomes ‘How can I bring glory to God?'—not ‘How will God meet my psychological longings?’ These differences create very different tugs on our hearts: one constantly pulls us outward toward God, the other first pulls inwards toward ourselves. ... It suggests that our hearts are always active, either in bringing glory to God or to self. In this sense, the image of God in man is a verb. It is not just who we are; it is what we do.” (p. 158)
Imaging God is to big for one individual; we can only properly image God together.
Some pictures of God’s people are priests, children, slaves, friends, fellow workers, brides, warriors, living stones, evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers, husbands.
“According to [Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3], what do we really need? We need to be a corporate body, smitten with the glory of God, committed to the unity of the church, deluged by his love, and faithful as we walk together in obedience to him, even in our suffering.” (p. 167)
We need to love others more and to be loved less
Three questions that are the same thing: “What do you need?” “Who or what controls you?” “What do you trust?”

Review: 10

This is an excellent book. It is a thorough treatment of the topic in a way that is also accessible. The wisdom and concise thoroughness makes it a 100-year worthy book. It is not a treatise; not all intellectual avenues are pursued, only the most important ones. However, the important ideas are present, the important objections countered, and practical recommendations given.

▶ Notes

Chapter 1: Love Tanks with a Leak

Author was overly concerned with what other people thought of him. At one point, in seminary, he realized that “I didn’t have to measure up to the standards of others’ opinions because God’s opinion of me was rooted in the finished work of Jesus.” (p. 12) This helped, and he thought it was working, but when he got married he discovered that it didn’t work. He needed love from her. After being rejected by a girl, his parents’ response of “we love you no matter what” seemed irrelevant: “Sure, it was nice that my parents loved me, and it would have been much worse if they did not love me, but I wanted somebody else to love me too.” (p. 13)
“[Many people] are fairly sure that God loves them, but they also want or need love from other people—or at least they need something from other people. As a result, they are in bondage, controlled by others and feeling empty. They are controlled by whoever or whatever they believe can give them what they think they need. Is is true: what or who you need will control you.” (p. 13-14)
This is what the Bible calls the “fear of man”: fear, awe, worshiping, being controlled by, putting our trust in, or needing, Man.
Some examples: peer-pressure, people-pleasing, not being able to say no, self-esteem, afraid of being exposed as an imposter, “needing” something from your spouse, making decisions based on what other people might think, feeling empty or meaningless (“love hunger”), easily embarrassed, lying, jealous, being angry or depressed by people, avoid people, diets, feeling good about yourself compared to others.
“Fear of man is such a part of our human fabric that we should check for a pulse if someone denies it” (p. 17)
“The most radical treatment for the fear of man is the fear of the Lord. God must be bigger to you than people are.” (p. 19)

Chapter 2: People Will See Me

“From Genesis on, nakedness, or the shame of being exposed to others, became one of the great curses in Hebrew culture. It was a profound curse because it symbolized the deeper, spiritual nakedness and shame that needed covering.” (p. 25)
When we sin, we feel dirty, ashamed, before God, and we try to hide.
When we are sinned against (victimized or dishonored) we feel shame, too. Although we have not sinned, it may intensify the feeling of shame from the sin we do have, and we may confuse the two. (For example, women who have been raped may feel like that fact is tattooed on their forehead)
Our culture understands shame as low self-esteem; it is everywhere.
“Doesn’t the teaching on self-esteem and its emphasis on the self seem to make the problem worse? That was certainly my experience. When I tried to raise my own self-esteem, it just led to painful self-consciousness and further individualism.” (p. 28)
“Don’t we do children a disservice by showering them with unearned approval? The self-respect the schools are seeking to bestow comes only as a person develops a growing ability to meet difficult tasks, risk failure, and overcome obstacles. You can’t simply confer self-esteem on another person. To assume that other people can control our view of ourselves is what creates low self-esteem in the first place!” (p. 28-29)
We feel that we are exposed: our culture still thinks we should be clothed, despite rampant pornography; if a stranger sees us singing along with the radio in our car, we feel ashamed; eye contact more than brief is perceived as “staring”; hallucinators tell of penetrating, dangerous eyes that follow them; evangelical churches often talk about honesty and openness.
“That’s the paradox of self-esteem: Low self-esteem means that I think too highly of myself. I’m to self-involved, I feel I deserve better than what I have. The reason I feel bad about myself is that I aspire to something more. I want just a few minutes of greatness. I am a peasant who wants to be king. When you are in the grips of low self-esteem, it’s painful, and it certainly doesn’t feel like pride. But I believe that this is the dark, quieter side of pride—thwarted pride.” (p. 32)
“Fear of people is often a more conscious version of being afraid of God [seeing who we are]” (p. 33)
The Gospel has the answer

Christ has covered us in righteousness and removed your shame. Most people seem to need more teaching than this to be liberated from fear, however: the teachings implicit in the Gospel.
What do we need to repent of?
Do I love others in Jesus’ name or do I want to protect myself from them?
“How can I think less—as in less often—about myself?” (p. 35)

Chapter 3: People Will Reject Me

“Closely related to the fear that people will expose us (shame-fear) is perhaps the most common reason we are controlled by other people: they can reject, ridicule, or despise us (rejection-fear). They don’t invite us to the party. They ignore us. They don’t like us. They aren’t pleased with us. They withhold the acceptance, love, or significance we want from them. As a result, we feel worthless.” (p. 37)
“[The Pharisees] felt they needed the praise of people. They feared rejection more than they feared the Lord.” (p. 39)
To want praise from man more than praise from God (i.e. “peer pressure” and “people pleasing”) is tragic.
“Only people-lovers [as opposed to people-pleasers] are able to confront. Only people-lovers are not controlled by other people.” (p. 41)
The fact that Peter, usually fearless, had two incidents of fearing people (disowning Jesus and ignoring the Gentiles when the Judaizers came), suggests that this is really deeply ingrained in us.
“We worship [people] as ones who have God-like exposing gazes (shame-fear) or God-like ability to ‘fill’ us with esteem, love, admiration, acceptance, respect, and other psychological desires (rejection-fear). ... They are worshiped because we perceive that they have power to give us something. We think they can bless us.” (p. 45)
We worship idols because we think they are more likely to give us what we need than God, who is not under our control. Sometimes we also want to avoid God, because He is holy and we are not.

Chapter 4: People Will Physically Hurt Me

Words affect us. If our children hear only negative words from us, they will slowly begin to be afraid to speak to adults, afraid of failure. Even if we only speak words in anger once a month, if we say nothing the rest of the month, the only words our children will hear will be negative.
Abraham goes from having his wife pose as his sister for fear of Pharaoh and Abimilech to being willing to sacrifice his son. And the Lord’s response was “Now I know that you fear God.”

Fearing Pharaoh rather than God is idolatry.

Moses emphasized not fearing men but believing God.
“When [David] was afraid, he remembered that people could have great power compared to himself, but they had no power compared to his God.” (p. 59) We should be afraid at times, but we need to not forget God.

If Psalm 27 expresses the desire of your heart, then you are not fearing man

When Bad Things Happen to Good People concludes that God is not both all-powerful and loving.
When someone is physically or sexually abused, they feel shamed, and they interpret what others say and do as exposing their shame (regardless of the actual intent, which was probably not that). They may feel that their sin caused the abuse. They may feel that they are inherently seductive. They may feel they deserve penance (hurting themselves, ruining their marriage, etc.)
There is shame from their own sin, which is dispelled by confessing it, repenting of it, and appropriating God’s forgiveness.
The shame from other’s acts is dispelled by realizing that God grieves over our victimization, that He took shame upon Himself on the cross (it wasn’t His shame, it was shame for our acts), then He marries us. It is imperative that we believe that God loves us deeply and promises to remove our shame through His grace. “For every one look at myself I must take ten looks at Jesus.” (p. 67)
If we fear being attacked, we need to know that God is loving. (We might think that we need to know that He is powerful, but we probably already believe that, just don’t believe that He actually loves us)
Our choice is whether we will trust in man, or trust in God. (Jer 17)

Chapter 5: “The World Wants Me to Fear People”

Our culture values individuals. So we think about ourselves too much.
Over the past few hundred years, God has become feelings.
“As these assumptions [about pluralism and God] have gained more acceptance, there has been an unprecedented increase in depression and an astonishing rise in the number of people who confess to rage against God.” (p. 78)
(False) assumptions of our culture:

We are morally good. Apparently this began in the 1800s with the idea that those uncorrupted by civilization (e.g. children) displayed innocence and moral beauty.
Emotions are the way to truth
All people are spiritual

“The rise of psychological needs was inevitable: if you exalt the individual and make emotions the path to truth, then whatever you feel most strongly will be considered both good and necessary for growth.” (p. 87)
Just because we feel a need does not mean that it is God-given—it might be our own self-absorption.

Jesus won’t meet our “needs” if we make them up—instead, he will change them.

If we are cups to be filled, we are passive, which is why nothing is ever our fault in our culture of psychology.

There is beginning to be a backlash against this idea

Chapter 6: Know the Fear of the Lord

As we grow in the fear of God, we will fear nothing else.
Fear of the Lord can be learned; in fact, we are commanded to learn it (Deut 4:10; Ps 34:9, 11; Deut 17:18-19; Deut 31:13)
Fear of the Lord is awe, respect, fear, love
Awe of His amazing work, fear of His judgement, seeing His work as redeemer

Chapter 7: Fear of the Lord

Beauty of the fear of the lord
Submit to God’s will (Job 38-9)
Seeing God’s holiness
Seing God’s wrath
Atonement
The Gospel
Fear not

Chapter 8: Biblically Examine Your Felt Needs

“The popular view of a person is that we are a receptacle (cup) that holds psychic needs. Generally they cluster around love and significance. If the needs are not met, we feel empty. We can either try to fill these with people or Christ.” (p. 136)
2 Peter 1:3: Jesus meets our needs for life and godliness. It doesn’t say that he meets our psychological needs.
We have a number of universal desires (like wanting to feel loved) but are they really needs?
God said that it is not good for man to be alone, but what exactly do we need people for?

We need people to point out sin, show us Jesus’ love, help carry burdens, etc. (spiritual needs)
What about psychological needs: we (allegedly) need those filled to feel good about ourselves.

We were created for relationships, but the purpose was to show love to others, not to be loved by them.
There are generally two places people think the Bible talks about psychological needs:

In the trichotomy of body, soul, and spirit. But the Bible generally uses “soul” and “spirit” interchangeably, so there is no trichotomy.

In that we are created in the image of God. But God doesn’t need us, so this is not a valid argument, either

Conclusion: the Bible does not talk about psychological needs.
Marriage is not filling each others’ needs: “When we have a desire for respect and we don’t receive it, we are hurt. If we have a need for respect, we are devastated or angry.” (p. 147)
Adam’s sinful “I want” is maybe the first expression psychological needs

“To elevate our desire for love, impact, and other pleasures to the point where they become needs or longings is to sinfully exalt desire so that it becomes a delirium of desire.” (p. 149)
“This explains why Christ is sometimes not enough for us. If I stand before him as a cup waiting to be filled with psychological satisfactions, I will never feel quite full. Why? First because my lusts are boundless; by their very nature, they can’t be filled. Second, because he intends to break the cup of psychological need (lusts), not fill it.” (p. 149)

Chapter 9: Know Your Real Needs

God is completely fulfilled; He needs nothing.
“In need psychology, the natural reason to praise God is for what he has done for me. This is okay, but it doesn’t go far enough. From the Bible’s perspective, God deserves praise simply because he is God.” (p. 154)
God is the original servant, husband, father, brother, friend. We image God’s love and justice by being these things.
“This means that the essence of imaging God is to rejoice in God’s presence, to love him above all else, and to live for his glory, not our own. The most basic question of human existence becomes ‘How can I bring glory to God?'—not ‘How will God meet my psychological longings?’ These differences create very different tugs on our hearts: one constantly pulls us outward toward God, the other first pulls inwards toward ourselves.” (p. 158)
“It suggests that our hearts are always active, either in bringing glory to God or to self. In this sense, the image of God in man is a verb. It is not just who we are; it is what we do.” (p. 158)
“Wherever you find faith and trust, you will find people imaging God” (p. 159)

Meeting with people, praying for the world and other people, listening, working, enjoying marital sexuality, parenting, all for God’s glory.

Some pictures of God’s people are priests, children, slaves, friends, fellow workers, brides, warriors, living stones, evangelists, prophets, pastors, teachers, husbands.
We need to love, not to be loved.
The image of God requires both male and female; it is too big for just one person. So imaging God must be done in partnership with other people. So in that sense we need other people, to accomplish the task of imaging God.
We do have some needs

Biological needs for food, shelter, etc.
We have spiritual needs: we are dead in our sins apart from Christ. We need to be taught who He is and be rebuked as necessary. We also need to know His love
We are limited; we need other people to image God and to reflect His glory.

The Lord’s prayer does not talk about psychological needs; it talks about biological and spiritual needs.

“The greatest need of all humanity is that God be acknowledged and worshiped as the Holy One of Israel.” (p. 165)

Jesus’ prayer before his crucifixion was “1) that God would be glorified, and 2) that God’s people would grow in obedience. These were Jesus’ two basic needs. They are ours as well.” (p. 165)
“According to [Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3], what do we really need? We need to be a corporate body, smitten with the glory of God, committed to the unity of the church, deluged by his love, and faithful as we walk together in obedience to him, even in our suffering.” (p. 167)

Chapter 10: Delight in the God Who Fills Us

We fear man because of three things: being exposed or humilitated; being rejected; being attacked.
Our sinful hearts amply these. “our God provides the treatment: ‘Confess that you have been committed to your own desires rather than mine.’ This gives us the privilege of fearing God becaues of his immense, forgiving love.” (p. 170)
God covers our shame, accepts and glorifies the rejected, and protects the threatened. “In other words, God fills us.” (p. 171)
We cannot have this blessing if we want to feel happy and better about ourselves. The cup of “I wants” needs to be broken.
“We are empty cups. This cup, however, represents our spiritual need for forgiveness of sins, covering from shame, protection from oppressors, and acceptance into God’s family. It is an emptiness that says, ‘I need Jesus.’ It is an emptiness that needs God’s love. So we do need the love of Jesus. Since we were created by the Divine Lover, we will never be okay unless we know deeply of that love. Without this love we are spiritually and physically dead.” (p. 171-2)
The story of Hosea parallel’s God’s love for us. God tells Hosea to marry a prostitute. She does, and bears him a son, and then a son of doubtful origin, and then a son definitely not his. She ran after other people, yet Hosea provided for her, and she attributed it to the others. Finally, she ended up being (presumably) badly mistreated and sold as a slave. Hosea bought her, and immediately treated her as his wife.

“This is a holy love. Gomer was committed to her own desires. She looked everywhere to be filled. Hosea was committed to being a reflection of the Divine Husband. He knew it was impossible to satisfy his wife’s lusts, but he kept wooing her, imploring her to turn away from her own desires and find satisfaction in marital love. Finally he redeemed her. He bought her back.” (p. 175)
God says how He feels about this: Hos 11:8-9. When He says “My heart is changed within me”, “changed” means “overthrown” (like a destroyed city); in this context it means “gut-renching”.
We tend to think that God is like us: we’d have given up on Gomer. God is not like us. God sees us from the perspective of the future, when Jesus’ death has paid for our sins, and we in God’s presence, perfect, and we will be with God in joy and glory forever.

“God’s love is a costly love. It never takes the easy path away from relationships. Instead, it plots how to move toward other people. it thinks creatively of ways to surprise them with love. The path of God’s love is not without suffering. In fact, those who love more will suffer more. Yet the path of God’s love is a path that leaves us overflowing. Our cup cannot contain what God bestows upon us. It is only natrual, then, that the comfort we received from Christ will overflow into the lives of other people (2 cor. 1:3-7). Our goal is to love people more than need them. We are overflowing pitchers, not leaky cups.” (p. 179)

Chapter 11: Love Your Enemies and Your Neighbors

Some shapes we give other people: gas pumps to fill us, tickets to acceptance, priests who make us feel clean and ok, terrorists (never know where they’ll strike next), dictators who control us, hosts we can parasitically leach off of.

“‘"I do not want to live. I cannot live without my husband [wife, girlfriend, boyfriend], I love him [or her] so much.” And when I respond, as I frequently do, “You are mistaken; you do not love your husband [wife, girlfriend, boyfriend].” “What do you mean?” is the angry question. “I just told you I can’t live without him [or her].” I try to explain. “What you describe is parasitism, not love.“‘" (Quoted from The Road Less Traveled, Scott Peck., on p 182)

“The Bible summarizes these various shapes this way: People are our cherished idols. We worship them, hoping they will take care of us, hoping they will give us what we feel we need.” (p. 182)
We are to love other people like God loved us. That requires sacrifice on our part.
One shape other people have is enemies. These are people who are consistently plotting against us. Enemies might be husbands, wives, brothers, parents, children, co-workers, church people.
God promises that our enemies will die, and that they will not hurt His kingdom. (It doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be vindicated.)
“What the Psalms do is lean against some of our natural instincts. When we are inclined to take matters into our own hands, the Psalms teach us to trust God. When we would insulate ourselves from pain, they teach us to trust God. ... Instead of extinguishing hope, the Psalms teach us to learn to trust God and, as a result, be filled with jubilant expectations for the coming of the kingdom.” (p. 187)
We should read each Psalm twice. The first time let it speak for us. The second time hear it as the voice of Jesus—David was representing the King, and His pain is greater than ours.

“Even in the midst of Haman-like threats, the Psalms teach us to pray that the name of Jesus would be exalted. We will pray that God’s kingdom would advance and overwhelm al enemies of light, especially Satan himself.” (p. 188)

When we love our enemies, we should love them in such a fashion that they would be pointed to Jesus and hopefully repent of their sins.

If the thought of your enemy being saved is a problem, we need to seek prayer for that.

Loving our enemies does not necessarily mean that we should give them whatever they want. If they are wanting something unjust, justice says we should insist on what is fair. But we should forgive, not slander, not try to get back at them.
There is always a blessing in obedience: it may be that we are no longer controlled by our enemy, it may be the joy of becoming more like God.
Example of fear of man: Author’s daughters were really quiet around others (“a great deal of shyness is the child’s version of the fear of other people” p. 192). They talked with them about Jesus’ command to love your neighbors, role-played some alternatives to being silent, prayed for them. Over time, they changed.
Evangelism is a good example adult fear of man.

Chapter 12: Love Your Brothers and Sisters

The enemies that oppose the fear of the Lord also oppose loving each other in unity

“Remember, (1) the flesh has a sinful bent toward self-interest. It is committed to the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’ (2) Satan is a liar and divider. Notice that the most explicit biblical teaching on spiritual warfare (Eph. 6) is found in the book that emphasizes unity. Satan’s most prominent strategy is to fracture and divide. And (3) the world tries to institutionalize these tendencies.” (p. 195-6)

The church should be like our family. We need each other, we love each other, we do things corporately.

“Notice the results if we neglect to see the importance of biblical community. If we privatize Scripture, turning ‘we’ into ‘I', we have the following dilemmas: I have to go into all the world and make disciples (Matt 28:18); I have to pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17); I have to give proper recognition to the widows who are in need (1 Tim. 5:3); I have to teach the older men, younger men, and younger women (Titus 2:1-8). And somehow, in the gaps of my day, I have to work and make enough money for my family.” (p. 198-199)

In order to properly image God, we must do it in community, because each of us is too limited to do it ourselves.

The Israelites saw themselves primarily as part of the people of God, not as a individual who worshiped God.
The purpose of spiritual gifts is to bring oneness to the Church. You can’t find your spiritual gifts in isolation.
We should tell people how they bless us.
The Lord’s Supper is an opportunity not just for us to confess our sins to God, but to deal with any lack of unity we have contributed to.
Biblical love is outward focused.

We have a debt of love to our enemies, neighbors, and friends. Our duty to all people is to love them, even if they don’t reciprocate.

Love does not mean always saying yes, or self-sacrificing, however. That might just sin in other people. It might prevent others from using their gifts.

Example of a pastor who would drive his wife to all her medical appointments, pay for his daughter’s car insurance and the other daughter’s tuition (neither worked), while he taught two classes at a local seminary to make enough extra money. Decided that being nice was not the same thing as love; told his daughters he wouldn’t pay for the insurance and only part of tuition, told his wife he would no longer drive her to appointments, told the church that him doing everything was limited others’ gifts. His daughters got jobs and enjoyed them, his wife became less timid, and people in his church started using their gifts.
As you pursue love and oneness with the body of Christ, you become more unique.

Chapter 13: “Fear God and Keep His Commandments”

Example of a high school football player who chose to spend the weekend with his family even though it might cost him from the coach.
Example of Martin Luther, who although he was afraid of the people at the Council of Worms who could kill him, refused to renounce his statements because they were based on the Word of God.
Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego, who refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar, even though it might cost them their life
Daniel, who refused to worship Darius, even though he knew it would cost him his life
The author, who would feel defeated and worthless if one of his lectures bombed because he needed his students appreciation to feel good about his lectures. Gradually as he saw his sin (“What do I want?”) and asked the question “What is my duty?” he realized God had called him to teach and that He had bigger purposes than just to humble him.
Nancy, who looked to her husband to fill her, but eventually began asking what her duty before God was.

Her pastor asked three questions:

“What do you need?” (She answered that she needed her husband to listen to her and meet her emotional needs) The pastor followed up by noting that we tend to be controlled by the things we need.
“What or who controls you?” (The pastor asked her to be especially alert to events or people that resulted in being depressed. She identified her husband, children, mother, father, church friends
“Where do you put your trust?”

The three questions are really the same thing
Nancy needed people because she needed what they could provide.
The question is not “how can I have my needs met?” or even “how can God fill my needs?” but “How can i see Christ as so glorious that I forget about my perceived needs?” (p. 232)
She began to look for creative ways to love and began to ask what her duty before the God who loved her was.