When People are Big and God is Small

Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man

Need people less, love people more.  That’s the author’s challenge.  He is talking about a tendency to hold other people in awe, to be controlled and mastered by them, to depend on them for what God alone can give.  Ed Welch proposes an antidote: the fear of God.. the believer’s response to God’s power, majesty, and not least his mercy.

The book is divided into two parts: How and why we fear others and then overcoming the fear of others.  Firstly we need to identify the fear of man in our lives, which helps us to understanding that the cure is to grow in our fear of God and love for man.  The second part of the book helps us to examine our desires and understand our real needs and then to learn to delight in the God who fills us.  Ed Welch also takes us on a discussion of co-dependency, using this behavior to illustrate the theme of people being too big in our lives.