I taped the first TV interview to promote my book, Chasing Famous, two months ago on, “Life Today,” with James and Betty Robison.

The staff whisked me away from the hair and makeup chair, down the hall to set, to stand backstage and wait for my cue. What felt like hours, was probably only five minutes. I prayed God would calm my heart which beat as fast as my kiddo’s ice cream melts standing outside in the Texas summer heat.

Earlier in the week, I had a pre-show interview with a “Life Today” producer. He read my book and was in awe of God’s transformational power in my life. (You can read my testimony of God’s great grace in response to my teenage abortion in this blog post, or in Chapter 4 of, Chasing Famous.) He urged me to share many details of my story in the taping, as he believed the audience would be reminded or learn for the first time, that God loves us with no conditions.

While pacing and praying backstage, a different producer walked up to me and said, “Lisa, just keep talking. James and Betty will interrupt you if they want, but people need to hear your story, so just keep talking.”

And once the cameras started rolling, that’s what I did.

I was on cloud nine afterwards. I knew God got the glory as He made Himself famous through me. God was so good.

But there is always an enemy to Good. That evening, this enemy cast doubt in my direction. And like any good people pleaser, I analyzed all I said and worried, once the interview aired, the audience and my publisher would be disappointed.

I talked about my testimony for so long, that I’d not spent as much time on the book as I thought maybe I should have. And the unfounded assumptions and questions started rolling—Did I paint the wrong picture of Chasing Famous? Should I have shared less details about my story and more about the book? Will people want to read the book now? Did I blow this interview for my publisher?

But I kept coming back to how I felt immediately after the interview—solid, steady, and confident that I had used my past mistakes and my gifts, to made God famous. Isn’t this what life’s all about? Yes! But even people who write books about making God famous and life being all about Him, still struggle with wanting to please people, and as a result make life all about them…I mean me.

Until one morning, a week later, I put on my makeup in the bathroom. Doubts about the interview flooded into my mind. When out of left field, the Lord responded to my worry of whether I shared too much about the grace of God—typing this now, that statement sounds ridiculous—and not enough about the book, with a set of verses I’d memorized:

When I came to you brothers, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).

And right then and there, while applying mascara, I started bawling. Because with these verses, God reminded me that the point of it all, is not to please others. If I “know nothing” and proclaim nothing more than “Jesus Christ and Him crucified,” then, I have done my job. I didn’t speak with wise and persuasive words in that interview, only Jesus came forth from my lips and people saw God’s power in my life. And God reminded me of what I prayed before I went on set—that lives would be changed and people set free when I speak about our great God.

And sure enough, as I met the studio audience afterwards, with tears in their eyes and silence on their lips, people hugged me and a few wouldn’t let go. I wondered, do they have my story? A different one? They didn’t share and I didn’t ask, I only returned a hug that said, “Yes, He is so incredibly good to us.”

Now, I’m no longer looking to that interview, wishing for a do-over. Because of Jesus’ reassurance through His word, I am confident what I said on His behalf was more than enough for Him. And when people watch the interview on Monday, I believe God will continue to get the glory He deserves.

This is the point of living, the reason we are here—not to make our bosses happy with us, to please people, or even sell books, but to show off God. And then all that other stuff just falls into place. May we place ourselves in positions where God is able to do all this and more through us and may we never doubt Him when He does.

~How about you? Do you ever allow the desire to please others to dictate how you feel about your work, family, decisions, etc.? What if you and I were to kick that desire to the curb and be more concerned about how we can glorify God? Feel free to leave a comment below.

~If you’d like to watch/record my “Life Today” on Monday, July 3rd, interview, go here to find what channels and times, “Life Today” is playing in your area!

~ Wanna see a :30 preview of my segment? Watch here!