I'm going to share an excerpt from Rob Bell's book, Velvet Elvis:
"Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.
The relentless pursuit of who God made me to be.
I started identifying how much of my life was about making sure the right people were pleased with me. And as this became more and more clear, I realized how less and less pleased I was with myself.What happens is our lives become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves. We become split. . .
I had this person I knew I was made to be, yet it was mixed in with all of these other . . . people. As the lights were turned on, I saw I had all of this guilt and shame because I wasn't measuring up to the image of the perfect person I had in my head."
This passage jumped out at me yesterday as I was reading. Now, I am going to say that this book is a tough one for me. It's very challenging and pretty uncomfortable. I'm not sure I agree with all that is said in it. I'm not even sure I agree with the entire excerpt here...but some of it really hits me in a "wake up and pay attention" kind of way.
I think as women, we are especially predisposed to wanting to please others. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to please many, many people...but sometimes we don't consider if we are pleasing God in the process. The things we are doing for others may be really good things too like being involved in ministries, signing up for PTO, running car pool...people are going to "pleased" with you for helping out..at least initially. But is God pleased? Is that his plan for you right now?
And, what happens when a little while into "helping" someone or some ministry, there are bumps in the road? If you're not doing it with God's direction, but to please people, and the people aren't even happy with you...then what? That hurts. If we're subconsciously doing it to receive self-worth...we end up feeling pretty empty.
I have been resolving to commit my decisions to Him, and I have felt Him nudging me to "take a sharpie to my list." I have been dragging my heels, kicking and screaming in my head...why? Because I don't want to let anyone down. But, guess what? If I'm not doing it in His strength I'm going to let people down. It happened this week. It was painful to me. My busy schedule and distracted day resulted in me totally forgetting a commitment I had made with someone. I feel terrible about this. But, you know what? It's been a wake up call for me, too. I AM going to "take a sharpie to my list" this weekend. I'm going to surrender my schedule to God and let Him direct my people pleasing ways.
Prepare
Who are you trying to please today? What is on your calendar for today . . . is it God's agenda or yours?
I can tell by reading this that this one is hitting you pretty close to home. I think to take it one step further, when our schedule is full and we fail someone, we have a VERY hard time forgiving ourselves - usually way more so than the person we let down. About 15 years ago I failed to show up at a restaurant to meet a friend for dinner - just totally slipped my mind, busy schedule, blah blah blah. She probably doesn't remember it, but I STILL remember it as if it were yesterday it made that much of an impact on me and can still give me a knot in my stomach if I let it!
ReplyDeleteTwo lessons for me out of this is that I do need to be more diligent (really, not just saying it!) and stop overcommitting myself, which I am so WONDERFUL at doing that I should receive an award for it! I mentioned before, the Family Life group wrote an article about "good versus best". What is good (volunteering at church, school, taking meals, sitting for a friend, extracurricular activities or jobs, etc etc etc) MAY NOT be what is BEST for me, my family, or my schedule at this time in my life. There are many ways to get involved doing "good" and worthy projects and most of us are! But in the face of being stressed out, away from the family too much, not giving my husband enough attention, having a hard time managing the home because of my "other responsibilities", I have to remember that some of these "good" things are not what is "best" at this time.
Secondly, I need to learn to give MYSELF grace and mercy when I fall short and not hang on to it. After all, I'm just a people too. We've all been there.... we've all forgotten things or not shown up or canceled at the last minute or left paperwork at home or _____ (fill in the blank). And most of us give grace to other people when they fail, but not to ourselves! I can waste an awful lot of energy beating myself up about the things I didn't do right and not give myself enough credit for all that I DO.
Thanks for the reminder and cut yourself a little slack too! :)
Very well said Justina. I too have missed it. Completely failed a friend because I was totally wrapped up in my life somewhere else. I too find it so easy to forgive when friends have done this with me. And, yet... I too have held on to my disgust and disappointments... not with others, but with myself. As if I should hold myself to a higher standard? But, wait! Why shouldn't I extend grace and mercy even to myself? God has already done so! Yep, let's grab that sharpie and ask God where our focus should be... because when we start kicking ourselves for not doing what we think we should be doing and didn't we've lost our focus again anyway. It's never been about us... always about Him. Thanks for the sharpie, Jesus!
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