Jon doesn’t care what you or I think.

He is not out to impress anyone. He doesn’t yearn for accolades or glory.

The latest fashion trend does not factor into his wardrobe selection. If it’s too tight, too stiff or too much collar he won’t wear it. Give him his favorite well worn, slightly over-sized T shirts and shorts and he’s satisfied.

Yet he doesn’t give a second thought to leaving the house with a beach towel wrapped around his shoulders as a cape, or wearing his karate jacket combined with a cowboy hat and fingerless gloves, or walking around with a piece of bark mulch sticking out of his hat (read about that here).

Jon misses almost every cue for tact and poise and goes with how the moment moves him. Social graces and nuances are not on his resume.

Every now and then he might surprise you with acknowledgement, a smile or even a handshake just to let you know you’re still on his radar screen. But if he’s not in the mood to be bothered with you, he will freeze in place. If he doesn’t like something you say to him, he will scowl.

Jon can take thirty minutes or more to order at a restaurant, with the server returning to the table, nervously banging her pencil against her order pad and asking for the thirteenth time, “Is he ready now?”

Are you kidding? He hasn’t even opened the menu yet and he’s not troubled in the least by her impatience.

He can be so slow in a store checkout line people pile up behind us like kids in a school lunch line. You can hear them at your back, shuffling and sighing. It might embarrass you or give you an anxiety attack. But Jon has no concern for you or them.

You can’t hang out with Jon all the time and fret over what people think. You just have to get over it.

Approval from others is a prison Jon doesn’t visit or live in.

The truth is, when you’re with Jon, you have to get over what YOU think. Your opinion ceases to exist. It becomes a mute point.

Being with Jon means you’ve just signed up for approval addiction rehabilitation!

Obviously, my son is on the extreme end of people skills deficiency, but he has taught me much about freedom from the grip of other’s thoughts and opinions. Most of the time they don’t matter.

Jesus had his hands full with the approval addicts of his day. The religious leaders and lawyers, the Pharisees and Sadducees, were obsessed with approval. They nominated themselves as the politically correct thought police of their culture and took it very seriously. Everything they said and did was for appearance sake and everyone who didn’t walk, talk and think like them we’re viewed with contempt.

Matthew 21:26 and Matthew 21:45 (see below) reveal how much they feared public opinion and worried about what others said. The Pharisees major concern was for everyone to see their self imposed importance (Matthew 23:5) and was one of the reasons Jesus told his followers to stay away from them.

Ultimately our approval comes from God and we should pass every opinion through the filter of His standard for our life. He doesn’t see us as others do; for “man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

When we’re tossed around by every idea, remark, criticism, viewpoint, trend or bit of advice we encounter, we become what everyone else thinks we should be instead of what God made us to be.

Of course we need to be careful of an attitude that says, “I don’t care what you think, therefore, I don’t care about you,” but living life based solely on the praise and admiration of others is not living at all.

I’ve come a long way from where I use to be, thanks to Jon, but I pray I can master the fine art of caring about others compassionately without caring what others think of me.

There’s something incredibly liberating in that.

Galatians 6:14 “I am going to boast about nothing but the Cross of our Master, Jesus Christ. Because of that Cross, I have been crucified in relation to the world, set free from the stifling atmosphere of pleasing others and fitting into the little patterns that they dictate.” (The Message)

Ephesians 4:12-13 God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others.” (Common English Bible)

*Matthew 26:²³ Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?”²⁴ Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. ²⁵ John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin? ”They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘then why didn’t you believe him?’ ²⁶ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.”²⁷ So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

*Matthew 26:⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.”