In life there are times when we have to submit ourselves to be judged by others. This is just the way the world works. If you want a job you have to report for an interview where you will be questioned and your answers evaluated.

If you want an educational qualification you have to submit yourself to be tested and assessed.

If you’re an athlete you have to compete against other people and there can be only one winner.

If you’re an actress, singer, or anything similar, you have to audition and you may or may not be rejected.

But we’re not supposed to have what I call an ‘auditioning mindset’ in day to day life. We’re not supposed to measure our lives by what other people think of us and how they score us.

You’ll never be able to impress everybody anyway. It doesn’t matter how amazing, talented, beautiful, or Godly you are, there’ll still be someone out there who isn’t impressed and for whom you don’t make the cut.

But that’s all good because life isn’t supposed to be an audition.

Only God’s criteria matters.

You have nothing to prove!!

So many of us compare ourselves to other people and feel like we don’t measure up and that we have to do something to prove our value, to show that we are worthy, that we are deserving.

We don’t.

So many of us are waiting to be ‘enough’. Good enough. Smart enough. Talented enough. Pretty enough. Slim enough. And we think that when we are ‘enough’ then we will be happy, or we’ll finally do what we know we were called to do.

But guess what?? You are already enough!

An auditioning mindset is dangerous because:

1. It means you base your decisions on what other people will say rather than God’s will.
2. It has you looking for validation externally, and other people’s validation is fleeting and fickle, easily withdrawn.
3. It puts control for your life in other people’s hands rather than God’s.

At the root of this mindset is a fear of judgment and a fear of rejection.

But isn’t it better to be rejected for who you are than loved for who you are not?

We need to:

1. Accept ourselves for who God made us to be.
2. Define success in each sphere of life for ourselves rather than accepting other people’s definitions.
3. Be secure enough to let people have their opinions about us without trying to prove why they should think we are ‘nice’, well-meaning and spiritual.

God doesn’t judge us based on the world’s criteria. A good or ‘successful’ life, by His standards, will look different for each of us.

With God, there is no audition.

He loves you. He calls whoever He wants to call and it often isn’t who people expect.

And when God has called you (He has called us all in one way or another) there is absolutely no need to wonder whether you are worthy. None of us is any more worthy than anybody else and no less worthy than anybody else. God just loves us and that’s that.

Do we need to improve in some areas? We’re human, so yes. But that doesn’t detract from our worthiness or ‘enoughness’.

It’s only normal to feel hurt when someone looks at you and doesn’t see your worth. When someone demands that you audition for them and please them and gets mad when you decide to start being your authentic self and living according to God’s will. Yeah, it sucks, but give God’s opinion of you more weight than anybody else’s.

Live for Him and not for the approval of others.

Let go of that need to please. Get sober from the addiction to human praise.

Stop auditioning.

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In what ways have you been auditioning?

How has it affected you?