Tuesday, August 24, 2010
~Would All The Pleasers Please Stand?~I've written about this before but I've got to do it again. This is primarily for those of us who tend to be "pleasers". If you have no problem offending someone, or if you always speak your mind whether or not your opinion is requested, don't read this. You may have other issues to work on.  There's always a ditch on either side of the road. This is in no way a license to have an "in your face" attitude. Back to us. We want approval and strive to get it one way or another. We want to know we are doing a good job, and that we matter. (maybe in me, that's part pleaser and part middle child complex...  ...whatever)Furthermore, we don't like conflict and avoid it if at all possible. We're all supposed to know that we each have a calling. Right? There is something we were put on this earth to do. Maybe we will never see the fruit of our labor but we all have a part to play. It's vital, important, necessary. It's closely intertwined with our gifting, talents, and abilities. I remember reading about Susanna Wesley during my school years. She was "just" a mother who did just that----mothered. She just happened to give birth to many children, two of whom you may have read about: John and Charles. They were obviously influential. She, on the other hand, while just as influential, mainly changed diapers, rocked babies, disciplined children, and gave herself to her family. Out of my brief study of her life, I began to understand that God doesn't view success in the same way human beings tend to. He alone should be our audience. The One we aim to please. That was my first step towards finding true contentment and comfort in what I would spend my life doing. I became very satisfied with the revelation that my role was in fact, an important one.I could spend my life in a hut in a South American rain forest, taking care of an elderly woman and if I was doing what God put in my hands to do, then I would have met success.If no one ever saw me, knew my name, or read about me in a book, I would meet my Maker and would hear the words, "Well done".So, YAY! I can be Mom and as long as I am open to hear God's voice and obey, then when I get to heaven, God will be waiting to give me my A+ sticker.  The problem for me was that even after settling the issue of every calling being valuable, there came this matter of talents and gifting. Those were, after all a result of how hard I worked, how motivated I was, how favored I was, how fortunate I was, or what a good wife and mother I was. That part was all up to me....and I better measure up. After all, in the Mom Club, the really good ones are really talented. They have home businesses, they are chefs in their kitchen, cooking with ingredients bought for nothing, thanks to their handy dandy coupon collection. They make their own drapes. They take amazing photographs. They are chipper in the mornings. .....then all of a sudden, I saw it. I saw myself, standing before my Lord. naked. My hands were empty. It was just me. I didn't have a little bag with me, filled with my human traits. His eyes bored a hole straight through all those things I had always seen as strengths or weaknesses so that He saw only one thing.My heart. Not my strengths or weaknesses. Not my pictures that I so love taking. Not how physically fit or unfit I am. Not my beauty or lack thereof. Just my heart. Not even my gifting. All the things that make me who I am are valuable but only because they are a reflection of God in me......not me in me. Do we really get that? To really get a glimpse of freedom from others' opinions is life changing. People's opinions of you do not matter. "I know." No, you probably don't. People's opinions of you do not matter. Do you believe that even the opinions of Christians don't matter? "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Gal 1:10  ~stacey | |
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