How to stop living for the approval of others.

“I was doing all these things for the approval of people who would never really approve of me. Something needed to change in my life.”

Learn more about what changed Connor’s life: overflowhope.org

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Transcript
I just remember being at this crossroad of going back into my room and smoking marijuana or going and reading the Bible for the first time. I’m Connor Slack. I grew up in Springfield, Oregon. I’m 22 years old and I came to know Jesus when I was 20. When I was in high school, I was friends with everybody, but I had this deep longing to be liked by everyone. I wanted to fit in and I wanted to be like other people so that they would like me. I could be who anybody wanted me to be. I fit in with so many different groups that I kind of lost touch with my own identity. Long story short, it kind of brought me down this path of getting into drugs and doing all of these things to find that approval in these people that would never really approve of me.

When I was around 20, we were in this transitional period of my life. I called my aunt one day, just looked at her and said, I’m looking for something to change my life. And she’s a real estate agent. And so I wanted to see if I could get into realty or do something different with my job. I thought maybe if I had that difference, that it would change something for me. That conversation ended up being something completely different. And I just remember letting her into my life and telling her how I really felt, how I didn’t really feel like I could be myself around people. And I didn’t really know who I was. She just told me these two simple things. And that is that God loved me and that I can be myself.

When she told me that I could find that in God, it made me very curious. She encouraged me to pray to God after that conversation. And so I did. It made a huge difference in my life. I just remember being at this crossroad of going back into my room and smoking marijuana or going and reading the Bible for the first time. We had this Bible in the attic. We were moving out at the time. And from my perspective, all I saw was my parents, my friends, grabbing this Bible out of the attic and putting it on our pool table. It was kind of a miracle because how it would appear there just at that time, it made no sense to me. And so I went and picked up the Bible and started reading it.

And I feel like in that moment, that was when the Spirit fell upon me. And I started to understand what the Bible was saying. God met me right where I was at and all my addictions and all my flaws, truth and lies started to become real to me. I started to be able to understand what was right and what was wrong, which ways of living, I needed to give up and which ways I needed to start pursuing. A whole bunch of different sins that I was involved in just kind of fell away and God set me free from them pretty much immediately. I had no desire to continue to do those things. Feeling accepted by God, that’s what really set me free. That longing that I had for an identity and for approval was immediately met.

And that’s kind of why I was able to get rid of all these things. I didn’t have to cling to these groups and people to tell me who I was or what I was doing. I was able to get rid of all these things. I had no desire to give me an identity to follow because exactly where I was and who I was in that moment, God approved. Ever since I gave my life over to Christ, all my relationships have been better. It’s just been so encouraging to see how much people are involved in this faith journey, that I’m not alone. Jesus is my best friend now. I can always turn to Him. I can always go to Him and He’ll always receive me. It gives me so much peace knowing that I don’t need to get everything together or try to conduct myself in a way where He’ll love me. If I act like that, He just always loves me and is always there for me. I have a friend and a God who cares that much about me.

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Overflow Hope

Local stories. Real hope in the Central Lane County community. These are the stories of people in the greater Eugene and Springfield, Oregon community who have experienced Jesus Christ change their lives. Their stories prove Christianity is more than religion and that it's possible to change your life. There is hope when you are hopeless, lack purpose or motivation, struggling with anxiety and depression, or just know there has to be more than life than this. We hope these stories show you that Jesus is alive, loving and willing to meet anyone who cries out to Him.

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