For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a “pleaser”. For many years I was the typical middle child. My personality was more inward as a child. I was pretty quiet and felt that my opinions and desires were unimportant. Under the dominance of other siblings, I felt that it was useless to state my heart because the others wanted their way more. Then as an adult, when confronted with another dominant person, I would shrink back. I would assume they would have their way, and in an effort to avoid conflict, I would deny my own heart. There is a lot of pain in living this way. A pain that often leads to bitterness if it’s never healed.
Then one day God began to take me to a secret place and pour value over me. Daily, He would speak value to my starving heart. I began to see myself through the eyes of the One Who cared for me enough to create me on purpose. He began to show me places where it was okay for me to state my position and my desires in a healthy way and not worry about how others received it.
When I began to do that, I noticed something, others didn’t respond to me by rejecting me or abandoning me, as I had feared. Instead, they seemed to honor my requests. They seemed to begin treating me in much more respectful ways, as I walked in respect of them and myself. When I realized that it was okay for me to have needs, I began to see needs fulfilled.
If you are, by nature, a pleaser then I encourage you to go to the secret place and ask God to realign your heart. Before bitterness or tantrums set in, step back and ask God if you are partly responsible for the way others are treating you. That’s often the case. I know it was for me. I allowed others to treat me poorly. The only thing is, the way to begin to change that is not through shouting or manipulation or pouting, no it’s through walking near God and letting Him move in your heart so you walk in your true identity. It all comes from the inside.
Our value begins in our hearts, then once it’s established inside, something miraculous happens as others begin to treat you differently without you saying a word. I know it’s true, because I’ve experienced it.
We should always want to serve others, but never at the expense of losing our own value. That’s much different than humility. Actually, that’s false humility, and I don’t know about you, but I want to walk in truth.
God, teach me how to walk out my true value. Help me to walk into the world gently, but with purpose. Kneed into my heart, true value. A value that cannot be shaken and leads to true humility. I wanna be like Jesus. Teach me Your heart. I love You, in Jesus name, Amen.
So, we make it our goal to please Him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 2 Corinthians 5:9
I long to please God, not men.
365 Days in the Presence 