Mar 26 - DAY 42 - The People-Pleaser Trap

Day 42

The People-Pleaser Trap

For we are God's masterpiece.

He has created us anew in Christ Jesus,

so that we can do the good things

he planned for us long ago.

Ephesians 2:10 NLT

The final, final chapter of Rick Warren’s book is another trap – The People-Pleaser Trap.

Again we ask, Why after watching people for ten more years after this bestseller’s first publication, did Rick Warren feel need to add this particular chapter? Why? Because trying to please people is one of our biggest barriers to pleasing other people.

Rick Warren asks it simply and profoundly: Whose approval are you living for?

•      I’ve watched adults be paralyzed as they’re still living for some parent’s reluctant approval.
•      I’ve watched teens be blown about in hundreds of harmful directions as they seek the approval of peers.
•      I’ve watched young girls give themselves away to the first person who even hints (often disingenuously) that they love her.
•      I’ve watched employees stab a co-worker in the back to curry a boss’s favor.
•      I’ve watched girls starve themselves half to death trying to look like the pictures in the magazines.
•      I’ve watched boys slip into depression when they don’t measure up to the (often athletic) standards that seem to define young men.

Therefore, Rick Warren asks, whose approval are you really living for?

One of my favorite lines is …

Live your life for

an Audience of One!

Another is …

If God has already justified you,

why do you spend so much energy

trying to justify yourself before others?

God loves you. Just the way you are! Do you know how I know that? He created you!!!

When we realize that we are God’s masterpiece, then we start looking for his approval rather than the world’s approval.

Make a list today: Who’s approval do you still seek in this life?

Chances are, if you’re still seeking that person’s approval, then either you don’t measure up in their judgmental eyes … or you don’t measure up in your own insecure eyes. If a judgmental person is your standard, then you have the wrong standard. And if you’re insecure, it’s a matter of faith (or faithlessness, or unforgiveness – indeed being unable to forgive yourself).

It’s time to trust God. Trust that he loves, forgives, and is not judgmental. He loves you the way he made you! (And in those ways that the world “unmakes” us, he’s literally dying to restore us. Just think of the cross.)

In Christ’s Love,

a guy for whom it took

a lot of years (and

eventually a lot of faith)

to be comfortable

in his own skin

… and now I can

live with joy and purpose