What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care? by Edward T. Welch is written for those people who care too much about what other people think of them. You know the type. Habitual people-pleasers, insecure chameleons, and embittered wallflowers. It's written for people whose response to a perceived slight is to sink into the depths of despair for a month. Or, for people who bask in the glow of a compliment for six years. People who agonize over whether to write "Merry Christmas" or "Season's Greetings" on their Christmas cards, for fear of appearing either too politically incorrect or too secularized, and for people who measure their self-worth by how many degrees they have. It's written for people who spend hours analyzing whether an emoticon included in an email was meant to be sincere or sarcastic. It's written for chronic followers and narcissistic leaders. For the person who won't have fun at a gathering unless he's the center of attention. It's written for people who worry they are not pretty enough, smart enough, funny enough, important enough. For those who feel inferior and those who feel superior. For those who dwell for a week on whether their heartfelt complement was taken as a disguised insult. In other words, this book is written for just about everyone.
Even more specifically, this book is written for young Christians. It is written for people who trust in the Bible as the inspired and infallible word of God and who rest in Christ's redeeming work on the cross as the answer to their deepest spiritual and relational needs. While Welch diagnoses problems that are universally human and, therefore, universally relevant, those who reject a Christian worldview probably won't be satisfied with his prescription. This is not just another self-help book.
My pride tempts me to say that I read this book simply to preview a potential study for the young people at my church. However, as a chronic people-pleaser myself who was tremendously helped by Welch's other books, When People Are Big and God is Small, and Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God of Rest, I read this book first for biblical encouragement and wisdom in addressing my own shortcomings. And, despite the fact that this book is written for a demographic younger than myself, I still found a great deal of wisdom between its covers, even amidst all the illustrations about peers, parents, parties and homework.
Welch begins by identifying our tendency to confer God-like status on the people in our lives. This happens any time we measure how well our lives are going by how well people think of us. And it's not just the insecure outsiders who do this, but the self-assured insiders, as well. Using biblical analysis and thought-provoking questions, Welch encourages readers to examine their own hearts and tries to help us discern who or what we worship in place of God. Our problem is when we walk around like cups needing to be filled by others, or, as Welch says, "...when we want to be loved more than we want to love" (25).
After diagnosing the problem, Welch devotes the second half of his book to answering three essential questions: Who Is God?, Who Am I? and Who Are They?. Welch argues that everything we do, think and say flows from our understanding of who God is and reveals what we really think about God, whether we are in a state of loving or despising him. In Who is God?, Welch offers a very accessible and engaging study of the attributes of God, touching on the triune God's holiness, his otherness, his omnipotence and his omniscience. In order to emphasize the power and uniqueness of these attributes, Welch helps us view the creation account freshly, through the eyes of the Hebrew slaves who first heard it. He then presents the Gospel, zooming in on the work of Jesus, the image of the invisible God. Welch's goal is to help us "see everything bigger than we once did" (95). He encourages readers to ponder the implications of the fact that God has drawn near to us through the person and work of Jesus Christ, to reconcile sinners to himself. Welch argues that only in dwelling on this will we be able to think rightly about ourselves and others.
The section Who Am I?, asserts that we are generally people who expect others to love us more than we are willing to love them. When people don't live up to our expectations, we feel depressed, resentful, self-righteous and hopeless. Welch promises that we will be freed from the constraints of others' opinions only when we live and love like Jesus, the only person who truly and consistently "loved the praise of God more than the praise of people" (113). The sting of rejection, insecurity and disapproval will lose its power only when we fear God more than we fear people. Only then will we be empowered to love people the way Christ did, selflessly, generously and without any arbitrary expectations of what we ought to get in return.
In the final section entitled Who Are They?, Welch cites the story of the Good Samaritan to compel readers to "expand the boundaries of [our] immediate famil[ies] so that they include [our] neighbors, which means everyone" (132). Jesus enables us to love our neighbors not simply because he serves as our best example of how to do this, but because our union with him changes our hearts. Only when we, like Jesus, strive to love others more than we expect to be loved will we open to the door to more meaningful and selfless relationships.
This is not yet another self-help book because its goal is not to help us put ourselves first. Welch proposes that what we really need "is to be with something so big that [we] can think less often about [ourselves]" (119). His gospel-centered presentation of who God is paired with his wise insights into the inner-workings of the human heart make this a convicting and humbling read, especially for the person who thinks himself impervious to the opinions of others. Welch proves that we are all more alike than we are different, not just in terms of how we think and act, but in terms of what we really need. What this book demonstrates more than anything else is not just the power of the gospel to save, but the power of the gospel to completely revolutionize our fellowship with one another.
Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
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