Fear No Man

Dear Growing Man,

Grace, mercy, and emotional balance be multiplied unto you, because you will need all three in this life.

I write to you because you are growing, and growth has exposed something you did not budget for.

You fear men.

Of course, not the kneel-down-and-beg type of fear. The respectable kind that says, Let me just manage this thing. The kind that edits your honesty before it reaches your mouth.

You fear opinions. You fear WhatsApp tone misinterpretation. You fear screenshots. You fear “let’s talk later.” You fear elders with no emotional regulation. You fear people who start sentences with “no offense” and then offend you with confidence. You fear being misunderstood by people who have already decided not to understand you.

You replay conversations hours later and wonder if your tone was too sharp, too soft, too ambitious, too familiar, or not familiar enough. You start sentences in your head and abandon them midway because of imaginary backlash. You fear disappointing people you respect and impressing people you should not even be auditioning for.

Growing man, this fear has many disguises. It wears agbada and carries a Bible sometimes. It calls itself wisdom. It says, calm down, don’t talk now, this is Nigeria, be smart. Before you know it, you have become so “wise” that you can no longer be honest. You have edited yourself into a footnote in your own life.

Let me remind you. Proverbs already warned us: Fear of man brings a snare. A trap. The kind of trap that you enter and cannot explain how you got stuck.

Even Peter feared men. That is how a man who walked on water ended up denying Jesus because of small girls around a fire. Fear will make you forget the miracles you personally experienced. David feared Saul and hid in caves. Jeremiah complained that God set him up. Even Paul wrote letters explaining himself because people constantly misunderstood him.

Fear no man does not mean you will not feel fear. It means fear will not be the one driving.

Growing man, look around you. People are confidently wrong every day. A man will wake up, trend for nonsense on X, double down by evening, and sleep peacefully. Meanwhile, you are losing sleep because you said “okay” instead of “alright” in a message.

Have you not seen how this country operates? One day, it is a soldier vs Wike scandal. Another day, Nigerians are joking that America has fired a Tomahawk missile into Nigeria because the news no longer shocks anybody.

Yet you, a normal human being, are afraid to speak the truth politely.

Let me say this gently: Not everybody will like you. Some will misunderstand you. Some will project their insecurities onto you. Some will say you have changed when you simply stopped shrinking. Even Jesus was told He had a demon. If perfection did not save Him from gossip, what exactly is your strategy?

There will come a day when you realize that fearing men is a full-time job with no salary. No matter how careful you are, someone will still be offended. Someone will still misunderstand. Someone will still say, “That one thinks he’s better than people.” Growing man, they say this even when you are bleeding for them quietly.

Fear of man is greedy. The more you feed it, the more it asks. Today it wants silence. Tomorrow, it wants a compromise. Next week, it wants your spine.

It will make you polite and resentful at the same time. It will make you pray for courage while you're negotiating obedience. It will make you forget that you were never called to be liked by everybody. You were called to be faithful. Sometimes useful. Occasionally misunderstood.

Leadership will expose this. Not because you are evil, but because visibility attracts opinions like light attracts insects. You will be accused of being too soft and too harsh in the same week. You will be told to speak up and shut up by different people on the same day. You will learn that fear of man is an endless committee meeting with no resolutions.

This is not permission to be reckless nor permission to be rude. Fear no man does not mean disrespect. It means knowing who you answer to when the room goes quiet.

Remember what Scripture says: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Not fear of a timeline, reputation, or who might misquote you.

Fear God enough to be free.

Free to apologize when wrong.
Free to stand firm when right.
Free to be misunderstood without explaining yourself into exhaustion.
Free to obey even when it makes you unpopular.
Free from applause addiction.
Free from living as a carefully crafted version of yourself.

Growing man, even the men you fear are afraid. Some fear irrelevance. Some fear exposure. Some fear losing control. Some fear that people will see through them. Do not surrender your voice to people who are also figuring life out.

You will still respect elders. You will still listen. You will still apologize when wrong. But you will stop shrinking. You will stop rehearsing yourself out of obedience. Growth is noisy, awkward, and will offend the comfort of others. That is fine. Trees do not ask permission before they grow taller than fences.

So as we close this year and step into the next:

Stand well. Speak clearly. Love deeply. Pray honestly. Laugh when Nigeria behaves like a satire account. And when fear comes knocking like it owns the place, ask it politely but firmly:

Who sent you?
Who exactly do you think you are?

Fear no man, growing man.
You are already busy becoming.

With grace,
A fellow growing man