My last weeks were filled with preparation. I worked a full-time job, gave hours of volunteering and I took on two different speaking engagements with just two week’s lead time for one and one week’s lead time for the other. I spent hours of preparation for two different audiences with two various topics to be relevant to two separate groups of people. Why, because my message was important and I didn’t want to waste anybody’s time or be unprepared for the topic at the moment.
I wanted the audience for which I was preparing to be fully appreciated.
We can perceive our life to be daily viewed and reviewed by all who are proximal. These proximity persons could be mistaken as our audience. We might even find ourselves bending or straining to gain their approval. The pressure that we perceive from them could if we let it force our decisions. “What will they think if I…did, or didn’t do…?” But really, is this with whom we should be concerned?
I remember a phrase that I heard many years ago, “We play for an audience of one.”
The urbandictionary.com gives a definition to the ‘audience of one’: focusing our “performance–what we do, say, think… or not, so as to be acceptable to one person, individual or deity”
Paul, in a context of those proximal, says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31, NIV)
Our words affect others; our actions may inspire, instruct, or even discourage, but we only play for the audience of one.
At the end of the day, the end of my life, there is only one person whose approval I want. “…Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 5:21, NIV)
You Don’t Have To Live; You Get To!