So I feel like if I were sitting in a room full of people and someone asked for all of the people pleasers to raise their hands, I might would have to not only raise my hand, but I would probably stand on my chair reaching my little fingers as high as they could to the sky. I am very much a people pleaser. So I am definitely writing this for myself just as much for others to read. This has been on my heart for a long time.
For people who have known me for any period of time they probably all know that I am a people pleaser and I always have been. My siblings can tell you that. I did everything they told me to do growing up. But they were my older sisters and brother and I thought the world of them so of course I wanted them to please them. You could definitely say I was their little slave. I remember a time not too long ago when one of my siblings told me to go do something and I started to do it and stopped dead in my tracks when I realized what I was doing. So it has definitely become a part of my nature to please people.
Another known fact about me is that I hate, and I mean absolutely hate, when I feel like someone is mad at me or doesn't like me. It will eat me up alive. In high school I would hear people talking about everyone having "an enemy" and I didn't exactly get what they meant by that because that would have irked me too bad to have an enemy. I just wanted to make everyone else happy, even if it was at my own expense.
So over the years as I have grown up and had this people pleaser characteristic about me, I thought it has been a good thing. And don't get me wrong, I think it can be. But I think my views on this have changed just a little bit, which has turned my world a little upside down.
Now I am trying less to be a people pleaser and more of a God pleaser. This is how it should be, right? If we live a Christ centered life, the only one who matters is Christ. We don't need to please the world or other people. If we go about our lives trying to please people, we will never be satisfied because let's face it...people are never satisfied. You will always be failing someone. You aren't perfect and neither are they. We do this to God all the time and don't think twice about it. We please others instead of Him, we turn to others instead of Him, we put our trust in others instead of Him, yet we are still His children. He loves us way more than these people on earth so why do we put so much effort into pleasing them and so little effort into pleasing God, the one that truly matters. Unlike people, his opinion really matters.
God is definitely number one that we should be pleasing. So now as I go about my days talking to people and making decisions, I have to think to myself (a lot) "is this going to make God or some other person happy?" This is so hard because people pleasing has become such a part of who I am; but I would much rather God pleasing be a part of who I am more.
I know a lot of people don't understand this. They don't understand that this is something that I am really trying to change in my life. They don't understand why. But they don't have to. This is something I have come to terms with. People of this world, even God's children don't understand it all. I definitely don't understand it all. But what I do understand is that I am a Christ follower and I live to bring glory to my God, not to people.
Don't get me wrong. I love God's children. I live my life to serve God and therefore I will serve His children but it has to be in that order. God needs to be my motivation behind what I do. So do you please people, yourself, or God...the one that really matters?
"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." Galatians 1:10
"On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts." 1 Thessalonians 2:4
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