How to Deal with Naysayers

Hello, again, everybody. I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and you’re listening to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast where every quart of oil goes into the car to get your faith and work aligned. If you’ve ever had anybody tell you “no” or “you can’t,” today’s show is for you, because we’re talking about how to handle the naysayers in your life. Let’s get you through that starting in just a few seconds.

So, I want to start out this episode by being really clear right away what I mean by naysaying. I do not mean those people who try to dissuade you because they genuinely care and can objectively assess your resources and strategy, OK? Because sometimes, you’re gonna have people who have been around the block more than you have, and they honestly have insights that maybe you haven’t gained yet. Those people just wanna keep you out of trouble. What I mean by naysaying is when people tell you no or that you can’t do something just because they are heavily biased. They’re not really trying to protect you. They’re just being negative, and they tend to approach what you want to do in a very black and white or absolute way. And what they say is really just their opinion. So, for example, using my profession in writing, someone who cares might tell me, “Hey, have you considered how you’re gonna get a stable income with your pieces? What’s your understanding of how hard that might be?” You know, they’re just trying to make sure I understand the risks I’m taking and have a plan. But a naysayer might say, “You’re never gonna be able to support yourself. You need to get a real job instead.”Or they might say, “It’s stupid to go after a career in writing when everything is in AI now.” And I just want to differentiate this because sometimes, if we’re really passionate about something, we can take any questions or criticism around what we’re doing way too personally. And everything we feel colors our judgment, and we think people aren’t supportive when, in fact, they’re just trying to ensure you really understand what you’re getting into. And if you’ve heard “no” or “you can’t” a lot, you’re more likely to assume people aren’t on your side, OK?

So, if in fact you have a real naysayer in front of you, which is just, it’s never pleasant. But if you have this kind of person in your life, there are two big points that probably will come up. The first is just kind of this sense of loss and mistrust. It’s this feeling of rejection that makes you really uncertain about whether others will stick with you. And that can feel pretty lonely. And then the second thing is, like, frustration. Like, feeling really misunderstood that they don’t get what you want to do or are capable of, or being angry that you have to fight to get people to believe in you. So, if you wanna deal with naysayers well, you have to acknowledge that they’re making those feelings happen in you, and you have to address the feelings they deliver to you as much as you do the damage their lack of support might do to the relationship you have with them.

So, how do you handle this first sense, the sense of loss, mistrust, and being lonely? Well, for me, I find it really helpful to go find stories about or just look at the people in my network who have succeeded at doing something similar to what I’m aiming for. Because those people, those are your people, you know what I mean? Those are the people who are trustworthy because they have gone before you, and that experience means they can empathize with you. So, you might find a support group or professional group, or you could connect with a mentor. And what I want you to remember here, too, is that the mistrust and loss you might feel, that’s a really normal reaction that might make you wanna pull into your turtle shell a little bit. But the problem is that it’s based on the assumption that just because some people have treated you a certain way, others will. Right? It’s based on this tendency the brain has to just wanna lump things together and make some predictions. But the reality is, you can’t predict how people are going to respond. So, like, even if you have some naysayers, that doesn’t mean the next person is gonna shoot you down, too. But from the standpoint of Jesus, of God, what I want to tell you, too, is that even if you really, you know, you’ve got nobody in your court, God is always trustworthy. Psalm 9:10 says, “And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who trust you.” And Psalm 111:7 says, “The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy.” And then one of my favorite verses is Deuteronomy 31:8, which says, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” So, remember how I just said supportive people are the ones who have the experience and who have gone before you? Well, that includes Jesus, OK? And then the final verse of encouragement I will offer is Psalm 27:10, which says, “Though my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” And I share that verse because I can tell you from experience, it is probably the worst when your naysayer is your own parents or somebody else in your family. And so I just want you to know that, if you’re going through that, even if you don’t have your own family to support you, that doesn’t mean that God’s not there rooting for you or that He hasn’t given you everything you need to succeed with the dream He’s given you.

But then we have the feelings of frustration and anger that naysayers can bring up, too, right? And when you feel that, I just want you to think about God’s prophets for a second. They were constantly frustrated. They were constantly having people trying to stop them. And you know, a lot of the time, they had to sit there and listen to those people mock not only them, but God, too. And in some cases, their lives were even on the line. One example here is David. He got frustrated when he was constantly running and hiding from Saul. But what did David do that you can do? Time and time again, he cried out to God. He poured out his heart to God, and then, what do you see him do? If you look at the psalms David wrote, yes, he tells God his woes, but then He praises God. He remembers how good God is. And the lesson there is that it’s OK to, you know, to vent to God. But even when you are frustrated, He is working. You might not see how He is working, but He is working.

And if anybody understands being blocked by a bunch of naysayers, Jesus does. The Pharisees and other religious leaders of the time, they did everything they could to trick and trap Him and set Him up to fail. But when they finally had Him on the cross, how did Jesus respond? He didn’t curse them. He didn’t lash out in the moment when he had the most reason to be angry. Instead, He asked God to forgive them because He knew they didn’t understand what they were doing. And so one of the most powerful things you can do is to forgive the people who don’t believe in you or who get in your way. Because they might not be able to see what you’re about. They might not understand the good things they are blocking or how they are hurting you. And they might not get that God has given you gifts and called you and that you’ve got Jesus behind you. They might not have heard about Him or understand what it means to be a loving neighbor. Maybe they were never taught how. And so Jesus had compassion. And when you pray for God to forgive the people who are against you, I want you to understand, it’s not saying what they’re doing is right. It’s not giving up or being weak, because remember, being up on that cross and forgiving and setting up an eternal invitation for anybody who would believe, that’s the strongest thing Jesus could have done. It’s just saying that, just as Jesus released His frustration and anger so we could be saved, you’re releasing that anger and frustration from your heart so you can stay aligned with the spirit of God.

And one thing I want to tell you is to resist that temptation you might have to deal with your anger and frustration by laying out the facts for people. Because that’s what we do a lot, right? We get mad and then we’re like, “I’m gonna give them every link on the Internet I can find on this. I’ll show them!” But we know from psychology that burying people in information doesn’t do a whole lot to convince them you’re right. What it does do, counterintuitively, is make them dig in their heels that they are right. There are a lot of reasons for that, and I’ll include a few links in the show notes if you wanna learn more about that. But if you understand the basic idea that you can’t just say to somebody, “This is going to work because x, y, and z,” then your best option to resolve the conflict is just to let the results speak for themselves. So, think about what happened as Jesus was preaching. He didn’t just give people a laundry list of why they should believe He was the Son of God. He showed them why they should believe with miracles no one else could possibly have done. And when His naysayers saw those miracles, a lot of them had to set their unbelief aside. They couldn’t deny Jesus was God’s son anymore. And so when you stay the course and you do what God calls you to do, there very well might be people who come back to you later and who have to admit they were wrong about you and the God you serve. The fact you finish very well might be enough to change their minds and turn things around, and that’s a pretty big deal. So, when you’re tempted to quit because of something somebody said to you, remember that it’s not just the goal you have that’s at stake. It’s not just the vision you’re working for. It’s also somebody’s faith and their ability to know who God is.

So, now that you have a little bit of guidance on how to deal with the emotions around dealing with naysayers, let’s look at it from a little bit more of a practical level. And for that, I’m gonna pull up the story of my guy Noah. You’ll find that in Genesis 6 through 8. So, just to summarize and refresh your memory on that a little, God comes to Noah and basically says, “People stink worse than Lindberger cheese. They’re not doing what they should be doing, so I’ve gotta wipe them out.” And God tells Noah that He’s gonna destroy everything with rain, and He commands Noah to make an ark so that Noah’s family and the creatures of the Earth will be safe. Now, scripture doesn’t really tell us how people around Noah reacted to his big carpentry project. But imagine you’re one of Noah’s neighbors. Somebody from his area. And maybe you’ve always thought Noah is a little messed up in the head for the way He goes on and on about this God guy. But then one day, you walk by, and lo and behold, you see this ancient, hundreds-of-years old guy start grabbing wood and a hammer and nails. And when he tells you what his project is, all you can do is laugh at him. I mean, a flood’s gonna wipe out the whole Earth? Seriously? And I don’t know about you, but I would have been like, this dude’s out of his bloody mind. And I can imagine as the ark got bigger and bigger and closer to being done, people only got more and more sure Noah was crazy. And I can imagine them just coming by the ark every day like it was a tourist attraction, making fun of him and God, telling him to stop and come to his senses. Because to them, it didn’t make any sense, right? They weren’t the ones God had talked to. And so, Noah probably had to deal with that day after day. And he probably dealt with that for years. I mean, an ark isn’t exactly a small project, right? It took time. But what did Noah do? Did he let them get to him? Maybe he had some bad days. But he kept hammering. Why? Because the sound He paid attention to in his ears and in his mind, the message he played over and over in his heart and head wasn’t from the naysayers. It was the sound of the voice of God that He knew was not in his imagination. It was the memory of God telling him what we find in Genesis 7:1 — “The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.” When everybody else was probably down on him, Noah knew that no matter what anybody else thought or said, God saw him as good. God believed in Him. God was making a promise to him like no promise anybody had ever gotten before, and God was telling him, “Because you are good and faithful, come into the boat with me. I’ll be there with you. I’ll keep you safe with me.” And what did Noah do? He got in the boat! So, now I want to turn your attention to Mark 4:35-41. In those verses, we find that Jesus has asked his disciples in the evening to cross over with him in a boat to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. And what you have to understand there first is that he’s got some disciples who are experienced fishermen. And they know that the Sea of Galilee can get dangerous really fast. It’s known for its unpredictable storms. So that alone would have made them hesitate. And on top of that, if they were to go across to the other side, they’re going into Gentile territory, which brings its own basket of safety problems. They knew if they went across, they’d be surrounded by people who would be critical of them. And sure enough, they all get in the boat, a big storm comes up, and the disciples are terrified they’re gonna drown. And they wake up Jesus, who’d been sleeping through the storm, and they ask Him, “Hey, don’t you even care? We’re in danger here!” And just as God had commanded the rain to stop to end the flood and then sent the wind to dry the Earth out, Jesus commands the waves to be still, and they’re still. And what I want you to see is that, in both those stories, people had to be willing to get in the boat. And both times, everything they needed to stay safe was already with them. They didn’t have to worry about what was going on with the weather, because there was an infinitely capable captain at the helm. So when people make fun of you or tell you that you can’t do something God’s put on your heart, when your storm comes, don’t focus on how high the water is. Focus on the captain you’ve got in the boat with you.

To pull all this together, I just want to offer a little encouragement, because I know that there will be times when the naysayers in your life try to pull you away from living the way God wants you to do. And they might even tell you not to believe in God. And I just want to remind you that, because you have the power of Jesus with you, you have the strength to walk away from their doubt. Just walk away. Don’t let them plant any seeds that could grow big enough to choke your faith.

So, let’s pray together.

Lord, I give You thanks today that we can do all things through You, no matter what anybody else might tell us. Thank You that when others tell us “no” or “you can’t,” You’re in the boat with us telling us that “yes” and “you can.” And God, I thank You for your Son, who showed us how to give love even when people don’t believe in us. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

All right, listeners. That’s the end of the show. Next episode, I’m diving into how to handle disappointment. I think we’ve all had a little bit of that in our work at some point, right? Maybe people let you down on your team or your job isn’t going the way you thought it would, for example. I’ll share how that’s influenced my own career decisions and try to help you through it next time. Until then, everybody, be blessed.