Freedom from the Burden of People-Pleasing

Susan Narjala

 

 

As a child, I learned to colour inside the lines. I don’t mean just in art class, but that nature and nurture moulded me into a rule-follower. Perhaps it was partly a result of my convent school upbringing where we were trained to keep everyone happy. As I got older I realised, however, that the label of “people pleaser” fit me a little too perfectly. I became accustomed to trying to win others’ approval and ensuring I was in everyone’s good books.

 

Living with an agenda to please people can be exhausting because it does not align with God’s design for us. Jesus came to give us life and life to the full (John 10:10). When we are burdened with the weight of trying to keep everyone happy, that fullness starts to dissipate. We end up carrying a cross that is not ours to carry. We become embittered because, instead of glorifying God, we seek the world’s acceptance—a fickle and transient way to find significance.

 

Like many other issues, the problem of people pleasing becomes more heightened in the online world. Social media only serves to feed the beast of approval addiction as we expertly curate posts that win us thumbs-ups and heart emojis.

 

Even the secular world recognises that living to please others is suffocating. But culture typically prescribes only one solution to this problem: instead of living for others, live on your own term. But as those who belong to Christ, we are not called to live by our own rules but in step with the Spirit. How do we overcome this burden of approval addiction and live to please an Audience of One?

 

Understand our identity

 

One reason we work so hard to win others’ acceptance is that we are uncertain of our identity in Christ. But a less obvious reason could be that we simply haven’t committed to knowing who God is. As we start to grasp the infinite goodness and radical grace of God, we long to live to please him above all else. And once we begin to know God through the Word, we begin to know who we are in him.

When we understand that we are created in the image of this wonderful God, that we are fearfully made, that we are God’s handiwork and that we are created for good works, we live out that identity with confidence instead of grasping at straws for validation. Our significance is secure in Christ and secured by Christ. Rather than view ourselves through the eyes of those around us, we see ourselves as a chosen people who are set apart for God’s glory.

 

Understand the repercussions

 

Even within Christian culture, we have cast people pleasing as a “cute” or acceptable personality trait rather than calling it out as a sin. Personally, I know this to be true as I have joked about it in women’s get-togethers and fellowship groups.

 

But in trying to please everyone, there is little question that we will be hampered in any attempt to share the gospel. Christians are called to be in the world but not of the world. In trying to get the world’s validation, we compromise our purpose, we censor ourselves from sharing the truth in love and we are unable to be salt and light in the world. The Word reminds us that “we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.” (Thessalonians 2:4 )

 

The apostle Paul had sobering things to say on this topic, the most iconic of them being: “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of God.” (Galatians 1:10) Paul positions people pleasing as being in opposition to serving God. If we are committed to serving God, then we ought to be serious about understanding that approval addiction has significant consequences.

 

Understand God’s redemptive power

 

We live in an age with a premium placed self-awareness gained through personality tests. We are eager to label ourselves with letters, colours or numbers based on whatever personality test is popular in current culture. But for a Christian, a personality test that reveals you are a people pleaser is not an entrapment or an excuse. We are not confined by our labels. In Christ, God has made us new creations. We “have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator” (Col. 3:10).

 

We don’t have to be “stuck” in people-pleasing mode as God is in the business of redeeming and restoring us into the fulness of what he has planned for us.

 

Understand that we are called to conformity to Christ

 

While we often think of Jesus being the gentle Lamb of God, we tend to brush past the fact that he is called a rock of offense to those who reject him (1 Peter 2:7–8). While he did not come to this earth to cause offense, he often rattled the status quo in order to obey and please the Father. He overturned tables of money changers at the temple. He healed people and allowed His disciples to pluck wheat on the Sabbath. He retreated to a quiet place to pray and even left town when people had gathered to see His miracles (Mark 2). He didn’t try to paint the truth in a way that was pretty or flattering but spoke it plainly and fully because of his love for those who were listening.

 

We cannot be conformed to the image of Christ and expect to be liked by everyone. In fact, Jesus himself says: You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. (Matthew 10: 22)

 

Without a doubt, we are to live in harmony with one another, to listen more than speak, to be peacemakers, to bless those who curse us and to love our enemies. But instead of trying to please others by fitting in, may we understand our identity as being set apart and our calling to be salt and light in the world.