"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, New International Version

It's hard when God puts me in check.  I sat down and asked Him to give me a verse to write about today.  It had been awhile since I read the book of Galatians so I started there.  Got to verse 10 and stopped ... dead in my tracks.  This one hurt ... and it's not just the 'first cut (is the deepest)', but the second, third, and maybe the fourth cut as well.  It's one more battle in this war called life that I've fought time and time again.  Most of the time ... I lose.

It goes by many names ... the cool sounding ones are codependency or approval addiction.  The not so cool sounding ones are suck up ... pest ... weakling ... loser.  Or maybe that's just what goes through my head.  I'm no psychiatrist, and I don't even play one on t.v., but I could probably come up with a long list of reasons why I seek the approval of human beings.  If you've been a faithful reader of this blog, you've already heard them.  If you're new, the short explanation is that due to the death of my oldest brother, I became the middle child whose parents divorced, whose father abandoned me and my two brothers, who grew up with a stutter which led to a low self esteem and not much confidence.  I walked around junior high and high school afraid of my own shadow.  Fortunately I had a few friends who always had my back.  I went to college and flunked out within four terms.  Moved back home, got a job, hated the job, went back to college.  Got married, bought a house, and got involved in a network marketing business.  Graduated from college but was told by my 'business partners' that college was worthless, and that being in "this" business was the only way to succeed.  Failed miserably at the networking business.  Finally walked away from it after years of negative reinforcement "motivation."  Worked harder at my job, succeeded at my job, then got laid off from my job.  There you go ... that's 34 years, beginning at age 7, summed up in a paragraph.  I have to start at age 7 because I really don't remember much before then.  It's not the worse story you've ever heard, I'm sure, but it's my story.

So what's that got to do with seeking the approval of others?  Pretty much everything from my viewpoint.  Middle children really do have to work harder for attention.  When one of your parents leaves and doesn't contact you for ten years, you'll spend a lot of time wondering why, and asking yourself if it was because of you?  Obviously dad didn't like me ... I have to try harder to get people to like me.  When you can't talk clearly, or smoothly, or "normal", you get picked on and teased a lot.  If they're teasing me they must not like me.  I have to try harder to get people to like me.  You show up the first day of junior high, meet a ton of kids you've never met before, which leads to more kids picking on you and teasing you because you still can't talk very well.  Not to mention you're small, slow, and weak.  An easy target.  So to avoid getting the crap beat out of you by the school bullies, you try hard to get people to like you. 

That continues through high school.  You finally graduate.  You can leave all that behind.  You arrive on the campus of Michigan State University ... a new dawn right?  No one knows you ... you can start over ... reinvent yourself.  Unfortunately you're still walking around trying to get everyone to like you.  You go by Joe now, and not Joey, but that's about all that's changed.  You still can't talk right, college still has bullies, and there are people there who will not like you.  I have to try harder to get people to like me.  You make a few friends ... the local dorm drug dealers.  Hey ... why not?  You smoke enough pot and you'll forget about people that don't like you.  You'll also flunk out of school.

You have to move back home now.  A failure.  Mom's not going to be happy about this one.  You're flunking out as your older brother is graduating from the University of Michigan.  Where's the pot?  I need more of that to cope with flunking out.  Makes sense right?  You get a job at a beer distributor ... exactly what you need ... to be surrounded by beer 8-10 hours a day.  Guess what?  Warehouses have bullies too.  By this time though you can handle your own ... you can dish as well as take it ... well ... at least you can dish it.  When your foreman calls you everything in the book for your first two weeks on the job, that's not the easiest thing to deal with.  He obviously doesn't like me.  I have to try harder to get people to like me.

While working there, loading 19 beer trucks every night, you find Jesus ... get saved ... get religion.  However you want to put it, your life changes.  Now I've got God on my side.  Not only that, but he's wiped the slate clean ... sins erased ... the Bible says I'm a new person!  Just like college, another chance to reinvent myself.  This is just what I needed.  But then in church you start hearing God referred to as 'father.'  You learn about the Ten Commandments.  You read things like "be holy for I am holy."  Holy?  Me?  The only thing I knew about holy at the time was that it preceded another word.  They tell me that God loves me, but I don't get it ... I can't even see Him.  I don't want to go to hell though, so I have to work hard, and try hard, and pray hard, and do everything right.  I have to try harder to get God to like me.

You see, it all becomes automatic at some point.  You do it without even thinking.  You don't realize what you're doing until people slowly start to avoid you.  At that point you know you've done something wrong, so you start to apologize ... for everything ... for existing.  You just want a friend ... someone to get you.  So you try harder to get people to like you.  You wake up one day in a recovery room at Sparrow hospital.  You've just had another back surgery.  You go home and you're pretty much alone because your wife has to work.  You heal, go back to work for six months, then have surgery number five.  You go home, alone most of the time again because your wife has to work.  It's no one's fault, you're just alone.  You heal, go back to work, get laid off three days later.  You're back home.  Back to being alone, day after day.  You look all over the world, literally, for a job and can't find one.  Still alone.  You have facebook, but that's just like high school all over again.  You ask someone to be your friend ... they either accept or ignore you.  You have a 50% chance of being ignored.  I have to try harder to get people to like me.

It's automatic.  You do it without thinking.  You wake up one day and look at what you have.  You assess your life, your accomplishments, your failures.  At some point you get sick and tired of trying.  You realize that God is pleased with you just the way you are.  After all, He created you.  He really does love you, and you're starting to understand that after 20 years of walking with Him.  Then you ask yourself, what's harder ... trying to get people to like you, or walking away from that way of thinking?  You know what ... they're both hard ... but one has a better pay off.  You choose the latter ... you try to find peace with who you are.  You remind yourself how much God loves you all day ... every day.  And then ... one day you realize ... that you made it one day without trying to get someone to like you.  And it feels good.

God bless you.