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MIDWEEK STUDY by Kim Dillhoff last week's message
PEOPLE PLEASING
“So then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore, judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” -The Apostle Paul 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
I want to slow down here a little and look at the fact that Joseph was pleasing to God. He did not lie with Potipher’s wife but rather did what God was asking of him. As I mentioned in my last article, I think that with the politics of the house, it may have been easier to do as Potipher’s wife asked and use that to his advantage at a later time…if Joseph had been a people pleaser, which, of course, he was not. He was much more concerned with pleasing God. http://www.hopeontheinside.org/SUNDAYSERVICE%20why-allthings.html) People pleasing is a deep concern in our society today. I think it is a concern, especially for Christians because if we are busy pleasing people than we are not spending our time pleasing God. Are you more concerned about pleasing people or are you more concerned about pleasing God? This is a question that I had to ask myself at one point. And then I had to be prepared to be honest with myself and let God be honest with me, too. It is not easy to look at yourself honestly. But the Truth will set you free. I can tell you these things from experience as I used to be a real people pleaser. I was always upset if anyone was upset with me. I wanted to make it right, explain myself until they understood. I would go over and over a conversation, in my head, and beat myself up…”Oh, why did I say that!” If you recognize yourself in me, I want to tell you that there is a way to stop this. It is in believing what God thinks about you and not what man thinks about you. Paul says, “I care very little if I am judged by you or any human court…” very little. He does not say he does not care at all. He says very little. And he does not say good or bad. This is true for the bad or the good. We should not beat ourselves up over someone’s negative opinion of us, just as we should not be overly thrilled by a good report. We can take an opinion and look at it in the light of God’s opinion and then let it go. Let it go either into the mix of God’s love or to release it as something that we do not need. Paul also says that “Indeed, I do not even judge myself…” This does not mean, of course, that Paul does not look at his life in general and make adjustments as necessary. What he means in this context is that he doesn’t constantly second guess himself and beat himself up about not pleasing everyone around him. I doubt he ever woke up in the middle of the night, as I did before I found Christ, in a sweat thinking, “Oh, I wish I hadn’t said that, she is going to be so mad at me!” People pleasing is living so that people will be pleased with me. This is a burden and the only burden that Jesus wants us to have is his yoke. There is so much energy going into trying to make someone happy that it is difficult to spend the time I need to spend with God. And what will happen if I don’t make this person happy? Is this person is going to be upset, in some way. We all need to decide what our motivations are. Why are we doing what we are doing? Dr. James MacDonald from Walk in the Word did a series on people pleasing and I would like to offer up some of the steps he gave in order to deal with our own people pleasing attitudes in our lives. I have added some thoughts to each step. 1. Minimize the time that goes into worrying about what some will think about what you do. a. What will she think if I do this? b. How will he react if I go there? c. Will she get mad if I don’t call her today? d. What if he thinks I’m not doing the right thing? e. What if she gets upset with me? 2. Minimize the focus on yourself. a. What if I don’t measure up? b. Why did I say that? c. I just can’t do anything right? d. I know they didn’t like my clothes. e. I can never do enough to make him happy. 3. Maximize God’s opinion of yourself. a. God will ask YOU how you spent your time for him, not about anyone else. b. God wants you to please him, not the unreasonable demands of others or even the unreasonable demands on yourself. c. Spend time in Word and in activities that you know are God pleasing, meditate on scripture, instead of negative thoughts.
Each person’s praise comes from God. “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.”, says Paul. So now we know that we are not innocent, but let’s leave it to the Lord to judge us. In this world there is so much condemnation. Dr. J. Vernon McGee, who is now with the Lord, said that the Law causes condemnation. The feeling that no matter how much you do there is still more to do and even if you get it done, it will never be right. God wants to give you consolation. He is saying, “Come to Me, I want to give you comfort”. There are a lot of reasons that we should follow God and not people. There are also some reasons that it is not a good idea to follow people, it can really get you off course. I will talk about that next week. So if you want to stop being a people pleaser, and see yourself as having this problem, go to God, ask Him to show you the Truth. Be prepared to hear the Truth. It is difficult at first to hear the Truth and He will do some house cleaning, which can be painful, but I can attest to the fact that the results are freeing. I have lost some friends and the closeness of some family members. My marriage has changed a lot, which I admit was very scary during some of the times when I had to stand my ground and he did too. But it is stronger now because I decided not to be a people pleaser. We are both happier and stronger because of it. But there were times when we did not know it would turn out this way. You have to trust that God knows what He is doing when you ask Him to make these changes in your life. True freedom is being around people who really love you for who you are and not just for what you can do for them. True freedom is bowing down to Christ and only Christ. True freedom is having the time to meditate on good and Holy things and not on the things of the world. True freedom is turning to a friend and knowing that you are safe with them because you waited for God to send them to you instead of trying to “get” a lot of buddies, to show the world how popular you are…and not caring about popularity anymore. I would like to say here that I am very concerned about people pleasing. It ruins lives. And, so I leave you with Galatians 1:10 also written by Paul to a different group or Christians. And, so you can see that he is very concerned that all of the followers of Christ worry about pleasing God and not man. I want you to find freedom in Christ. There may be no (physical) freedom in your circumstances, we know deep down that there is no freedom in trying to get the approval of men, there is no freedom in just going our own way doing our “own thing” and so where else can we find freedom from the demands of the world? I have found no other place than in the promises of our Lord and Savior. “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” -Galatians 1:10
****************************************************** A couple of notes here, if your spouse is not supportive or does not believe in prayer, God will give you the strength and blessing that you need to take care of your chronically ill child. If you are a single parent, you have a very difficult job. God will also bless you with what you need. Please write to me, if you can or find support. I pray that you will press into Jesus and let Him carry you and your child. If you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus, please follow this link http://www.hopeontheinside.org/getwithgod.html If you are not sure, I want to encourage you to find freedom, rest, salvation, wisdom and love. These things are freely given by God, if you will only freely accept Him…His Son. These are tools that I could not have lived without in raising my children. I pray that you will tap into these incredible gifts for parenting that God has to offer you. But, first you must receive. **************************************************************** If you feel overwhelmed and need some support please write to the email address below or go to the Forum on this site. If you are raising a chronically ill child, please send me an email at findingtruejoy@yahoo.com and tell me a little about yourself, including your age and the age(s) of your children, if you don’t mind, so that I can know more about you. ******************************************************************* Kim Dillhoff lives outside of Portland, OR with her (supportive) husband of 22 years and two children, still at home. Alex (16) and Katie (13).[here is the link to Katie’s poems that she wrote awhile ago and allowed Hope on the Inside to print. http://www.hopeontheinside.org/KATIESKORNER.html.] Kim, also has a son, Rob (25) who lives near her. Kim and Katie both suffer from Fibromyalgia (FM) and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Kim also suffers from Myofacial Pain Syndrome (MPS). She was diagnosed in 2000. Kim has been a Christian most of her life. But has followed Jesus’ teachings much more closely, in order to have a personal relationship since 2002. She feels blessed that God has set her in a family by blood and of Christian sisters who support her, and her family, with prayer and love.
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