Confessions from the Very Worst People Pleaser

“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? 

O r   a m   I   t r y i n g   t o   p l e a s e   m a n ?

If I were trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”   //   Galatians 1

 

 “Don’t be misled- you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we  d o n ’ t   g i v e   u p . 

Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone- especially to those in the family of faith.”  //   Galatians 6

 

 “For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, 

h e   w i l l   c a l m   a l l   y o u r   f e a r s .

He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”   //  Zephaniah 3

 

I have been living, demanding that others be pleased with me. My actions beg them to like me. My heart wanders in fear, wondering if I am received, approved of. Respected.

People pleasing took on a whole new nature of a beast when I stepped into leadership.

The lies twisted and skewed themselves so much so, that they appeared even to be truth.

Four months later, and I finally caved.

I cannot live to please man. I just cannot.

This is not the life my Lord has called me to live.

The lie I believed was that I needed people to like me in order to follow me.

I needed to extend grace after grace after grace, so that I would be on good terms with them, so that I could get them to come with me. To come where I was going.

But where was I going?

Only to a land that was empty, not flowing with milk and honey… not with freedom from the fear of man.

I was leading them to a place where I was dying, trapped in utter frustration.

I reached the end of myself.

So much frustration pent up, I was ready to give up.

I never saw that potential in myself.

I have almost always been the one to look on the up and up. Giving up is not really an option. I push through. I am determined. I would never leave my Lord. I couldn’t.

But my own reasoning began to echo in my head, my flesh rising up, threatening to overtake my entire life and obliterate every effort my spirit was making to stick to my commitment.

The lies came rushing in faster than I could dodge them. The arrows of rejection only served to confirm my worst fears.

I have spent most of my life generally well-liked. I have never really had major issues with being accepted or treated fairly. Life has just never happened that way for me.

And then I got deemed the title of ‘squad leader.’

The thing is, people are full of wounds and deep hurts, pasts that are unfair and unjust. People are marred by the sinful and fallen nature of this world. Our innocence is taken at a young age, and too many our  current lives are tainted by years of rejection that make it hard to let yourself be loved. 

For many people, a titled leader only amplifies the fears that have been instilled in them from years of hurt and pain.

It doesn’t matter much just how much a leader loves or shows a person their dedication and commitment to them, a leader can often represent too much hurt for them to trust at first. It often takes years for us to see how truly a leader has cared for us or fought for us.

And on top of that, I have made some mistakes, not to mention I have been absolutely humbled by my utter inability to be all things to all people.

As much as I want to, as many tears as I have cried, as much as I want to will myself against reason to- I cannot invest deeply, whole-heartedly into forty-eight different souls. 

I have come face to face with my humanity enough by now to know that it is simply the truth. I was not ever meant to be the Savior.

That’s why He is.

And for this, I come up short of being all things to all people.

For this, I am face to face with rejection, misunderstanding, and even my own fears of all of these things.

I realized just yesterday that I am the very worst people pleaser.

Oh no, I didn’t think I was. I thought I was fine.

My heart is hidden in the Lord, wrapped up in His love. My life is in His presence. My peace has been in His presence. He has been my safe place I run to in desperation when my whole world seems to be falling apart on the outside.

How could I be living only to please man?

I was deceived. I put a pressure on myself that never existed before. I created my own ideas of what a leader should be.

I ran ahead of my Lord and invented a version of leadership that I thought He wanted, even.

“Okay, Lord, I know You chose me to be a leader. You want people to follow me. I am supposed to be an influencer. I need to bring people with me,” I reasoned.

I took a call that He had put on my life and put my own definition on it. 

I forgot that I was called in the first place for who I was, not for someone else that He wanted me to be.

And in trying to be the very best leader, who was liked by all, received by all, and followed by all, I became the very worst and most frustrated Heather there ever was.

I was beginning to not feel like myself. I was being crushed under the weight it is to try to please everyone. I was met with the impossibility of my expectations.

I was trying to be the answer. I was trying to force things to happen. Good things, even.

I was trying to make everyone believe that they should come with me. I was running around frantically to every soul, and instead of loving them selflessly and calling them higher to greatness, I sugar coated truth and told them what they wanted to hear.

I withheld hard truth from them at times, or re-worded it so that it would be received well. I tried my best to live ‘above reproach,’ but my heart behind it was all skewed.

I found that I was failing on all fronts. There was no success. There was no fruit. I was met with failure after failure after failure.

I reached the end. 

This isn’t working. I looked around and saw no other way to go.

I had exhausted all my own efforts.

And I knew that was right where He wanted me.

At the end of myself, with no more energy to try to pretend to be someone I was not.

With no more fight left to lead the way I had invented on my own.

I couldn’t go on anymore.

And that’s when I nearly gave up.

Because I couldn’t go on like that- I literally couldn’t.

I was accomplishing nothing at all, but was feeling more exhausted than ever.

And finally, finally, I collapsed into the arms of my Father, who had been there the whole time. Waiting, waiting.

Waiting for me to stop trying to do it on my own. Waiting for me to return back to the only One who gives me life.

Waiting for me to find my strength in Him, and not in myself.

Waiting for me to stop trying to please everyone else, while forgetting that His pleasure is the only thing worth living for.

I forgot that when my heart is truly hidden in Him, when He is the only one telling me who I am, then all else falls in to line.

Oh, forgive me, Lord, for thinking that I could lead people by sheer force, by control. By my sheer will. I left the favor of Your will, and I didn’t align myself with Your will. I forgot that only in the will of the Father will there be any fruit of the Spirit. For only what is sewn in the Spirit will be reaped. Sewing in the pleasure of man will reap nothing but rejection and failure. And in that, I will find my worth and value.

But when I sew in the pleasure of the Spirit and seek to please Him alone, I will find my acceptance and assurance in Him, and I will be filled with True Life from the life-giving fountain that never ever runs dry. 

So I don’t have to burn out, and I don’t have to give up. For His love has calmed all my fears, and I am at peace. For at just the right time, I will reap a harvest of blessing that far outweighs the fleeting pleasure of being liked by man. And that is my faith, and that is why I am not giving up. Not now, and not later. For always, my satisfaction and assurance is found in Him who loved me first. And the worth there is in investing in these beautiful souls far outweighs any hardship I could ever endure. So in full assurance, I will walk into the midst of the storm, where I may be despised or even rejected. But I will trust that through my life and my alignment with the Lord, His will will be done here on earth, here in Malaysia, and here on this squad, just as it is in heaven.