Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10 NIV
About a year ago I had invited my childhood best friend over for a movie and pizza date! We had planned to get together to watch a new series based off a book we had both read, and we had planned to make a whole day of it.
As I was waiting for her to arrive at my house I decided to pray for a few minutes. My prayer sounded a bit like this: “God, I love you so much and I am grateful for this special time with my friend! I just think You are amazing, and I am just completely open to anything You want to say to me today. Lord, I just want to obey you and please you!”
And then I felt that still, small voice pipe up in the recesses of my mind. He quietly whispered to me, “Don’t watch this show.” I began to immediately panic, thinking “My friend is coming over for the EXPRESS purpose of watching this show! And if I tell her God told me we shouldn’t watch it, she’s going to look at me sideways and not understand that decision at all. I don’t want to be a wierdo in front of my oldest friend.”
And just like that, I began to rationalize my decision to go ahead with my plans thinking, “It wouldn’t be fair to change plans so quickly on my friend” and “Nah, I don’t think that was God, that was just my own thought” and “There are waaaayyy worse shows than this that I’ve watched and God never said anything about those.”
So, we watched a good number of episodes of this show, and agreed that we didn’t love it. (It turns out the show was not that great, nor was it beneficial in the slightest.) After she left I started talking to God again and asked Him, “So, was that REALLY You, God? Were you trying to save me from a wasted day of bad, non-beneficial TV?” And His response was this: “Forget the show for a moment. What does it say about your heart and your willingness to be obedient if you thought there was even a chance I didn’t want you to do something and you did it anyway?”
I was so sad that I couldn’t even obey God for such a simple request. And then I realized, God was using this as an opportunity to show me something about myself. On my own I have no problem obeying God for most decisions, but if there’s someone else in the mix my lifelong habit of people pleasing (or fear of people displeasing!) kicks in. I was so grateful that God lovingly pointed this out to me, while the price tag on this particular decision was low. On that day it was about a TV show, but tomorrow, who knows what I’ll be asked to give up in pursuit of following God and forsaking all others. And since then He has continued to test me and am glad to report I have become much more bold and less willing to please people over my God.
This will be a lifelong journey for me to put others aside, but that day was a turning point in understanding for me. In what ways are you still a work in progress?