Forget about your reputation and focus on what matters

Yet nothing has changed. It’s always been full of hard working people involved in the rescuing and recovery of lives.

The only difference now is that what once went on in private has been made public through this current season of crisis.

Our reputation is something we worry about a lot. What other people are thinking, what they’re saying and how they’re reacting to us can weigh on us to the point of obsession.

To think about your reputation is, however, a very natural thing to do.

In the ‘survival of the fittest’, the unpopular are left on the outskirts where perils abound while the popular are surrounded by a wall of safety, security and adulation.

There are a few problems, though, with thinking too much about your image.

Firstly, our reputation reflects more on our history than our present. If someone doesn’t like us, it’s usually because of something we once did.

We may have stopped doing it long ago, yet our reputation tends to follow us like a distant echo.

Secondly, when you make some of the hard calls of life like moving jobs, adjusting your friendship groups and evolving into ‘the next you’, people can easily feel like you’re rejecting them and take offence.

And this reaction can cause people to deliberately misrepresent you, usually by taking any ambiguity in your motives and twisting it around.

It seems like it’s impossible to consistently keep a good reputation. And if you try, you’ll end up like Blockbuster and Nokia - so popular at the time that they forgot about the unpopular process of reinvention. They ambushed their future success because of their current status.

If your reputation has been damaged by things you’ve done that you’re not so pleased with, it may take a while, but it can be restored little by little.

The best thing in your life right now, however, is to forget about your reputation and focus on the things that matter most - your integrity, your kindness, your attitude and being true to the person you want to become. In the words of Taylor Swift, ‘the haters gonna hate’. So there’s no point trying to please them at all.

When Jesus was on the cross to die for crimes that he never committed, he spoke out the immortal words, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’.

His reputation was shattered, yet he didn’t defend it because he knew what was true and what wasn’t.

What he did do was to take the blame off his accusers by seeing them as victims of Fake News!

Because of this amazing attitude, he refused in it all to see himself as a victim.

His reputation today is still divided and his actions still misunderstood, yet for the many who put their trust in him, he’s proven to be faithful, loyal and deeply committed to their plight.

And that’s the main thing anyway about the life we choose.

Pastor Dave Gilpin is one of the longest serving pastors in the City of Sheffield. He is the pastor

of Hope City Church whose 10am Sunday Online services are watched by thousands every

week across Great Britain – see online.hopecity.church