People Pleasing

I've spent some time lately reading a book called Pleasing People by Lou Priolo. He writes about how our desire to please man manifests itself in our lives, and he offers Biblical solutions for it. I think it's an important read for anyone who struggles with any kind of social anxiety, or for anyone who falsely believes they're immune to it. So everybody. This might only end up being the first post of multiple on people-pleasing, because as I've gone through the book, I've discovered more perspectives of that whole pursuit since I started this post. 

Regardless, the concept of valuing man's approval more than that of the Lord's is obviously all over the place in the New Testament. There was plenty of time between the final prophet of old and John the Baptist (and Christ) for corruption to enter the Church and harden the hearts and motivations of the God's people. Being a Pharisee was more of a status symbol than anything, and God had slowly been pushed out of the frame of reference.

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"For am I now trying to persuade people, or God? Or am I striving to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ."

Galatians 1:10 (CSB)

This passage is the initial reminder to the Galatians that the Gospel is meant to change man, not be changed by man. At that time, they were being influenced by false teachers that were preaching a gospel that was dependent on man's works. Even this was reflective of man's approval – we're judged by what we have to offer someone else. The Lord never judges us based on what we have to offer, because we have nothing to offer Him, besides worship and obedience. If we're bending the truth in order to be pleasing to man, we're ultimately serving man. And we know that we can't serve anything but the Lord, and still serve the Lord. It's one Truth or none at all.

The real Truth says that we have nothing to offer at all – yet everything to receive. And that's not how the world gives.

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"For they loved human praise more than praise from God."

John 12:43 (NIV)

It's important to remember who we are. I couldn't dance around the fact that human praise gives us some kind of benefit – there's a reason we chase after it. But that should make sense, shouldn't it? We're citizens of Heaven, but we're living on the earth. Man's approval comes from the earth, so it tastes good on the earth. Ultimately, this passage is saying that that's what the Pharisees continually showed they were after when they communicated with Christ during their plot against Him. Whichever way you cut it, you can't deny that they (like us sometimes) cared more about personal agendas that were not aligned with the Lord's. It's not to say that we don't experience some kind of benefit here from the Lord's approval, but we can all agree that the benefits look different; they're slower, and take a lot for us to see them with more completeness. 

What makes the benefits of man's approval and praise seem so different, is the motivation behind them. Man's approval is usually motivated by fear, rather than love. Even when motivated by some kind of attraction, it's more transactional; we value what man can offer us, more than we value the spirit of man. It's more proactive, and hopeful for reciprocation in the future. That motivation goes both ways, so it becomes pretty easy for one to disappoint the other, when they run out of or otherwise stop giving us what they originally had to offer. God's approval, on the other hand, is motivated out of true love – a love that's more genuine than we're capable of feeling ourselves. The love that we feel motivated to return is instead more reactive; we have a desire to reciprocate the love that we've already received – to give thanks for what's already been done for us. The "fear" of the Lord is one of reverence and respect, not dread and anxiety, like the fear of man.

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"Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them."

Matthew 6:1 (NIV)

We're not capable of pleasing everyone, not even some of the time. The closest we can get is when we live lives closely according to the Gospel, but even then we'll be misunderstood by some. Never by God. It only makes sense that we won't always make sense to man when we live for Christ – it shouldn't make complete sense to other sinners that surround us. It can feel discouraging when other people can't see what's in our hearts, but it at least allows us to rest assured that whatever people are wrongfully judging, it's not necessarily reflective of who we really are. Man can only really judge outside appearances. Whether or not those appearances reflect who we are is something we can only ask the Lord for wisdom on.

That being said, we're called to be peace makers, which you could argue makes outward appearances somewhat important. But Dr. Priolo stressed in his book that the peace maker should be willing to endure conflict in the pursuit of peace, since peace isn't just the absence of conflict but also often the result of it. We all want peace, but are we willing to sacrifice our comfort in order to get it? Scripture says we have to be – Christ's followers are called to be gentle, but far from passive.

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"Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; For why should he be esteemed?"

Isaiah 2:22 (LSB)

We give other sinners an inordinate amount of control over our self-identity, because we take small pieces of our identity and hand them over to them when we seek the false security that comes with their approval. When the things we identify with disappoint us or leave, they take with them those pieces of our identity, which leads us to grieve them as we wander around, trying to find things to tie our identity to. Because God is the only one that can never change nor disappoint, the only firm ground we can tie our identity to is Him.

Although it sounds backwards at first, I think that there's some level of pride at the foundation of that. We're hard-wired to trust our own capabilities, and when we improve ourselves, it almost gives us the notion that there's no limit to what we can do ourselves and how "good" we can become. Don't get me wrong – self improvement is something every single person should try their hardest to pursue. But understand that no matter how much better someone makes themselves, they'll never be good. Man isn't capable of being good. Mankind is depraved – our way of thinking, our discernment, and our judgement will always be as flawed as the world we live in. So it makes sense that the world is, in reality, just a reflection of mankind's struggle with the righteousness it received from God, mixed with its own corrupt, perverted desires. We're capable of very little, and we're surely incapable of cleansing the world of the darkness it produces. What we are capable of is "walking in the Lord's light" (Isa. 2:5) while we navigate the darkness that's there, understanding that it exists solely because man uses its free will to turn from Him, and that He always gives us the choice to enter into and be destroyed by it if we choose to.

So why do we live for the favor of those that can't see in the dark?