I Like You.

Chances are, if I know you, then I like something about you.  And if you read my blog, I like you already.

Over my life, I’ve had to work through some people pleasing and self-esteem issues.  I feel like I am finally beginning to move past them.  The more I’ve let go of pleasing others, the more I’ve let go of approval from others.    I’ve found that a lot of times people don’t genuinely like me.  Or they don’t like my message or what God’s teaching me.  Or they are just too busy with their own stuff to invest into me.  I understand that.  And that’s okay.  If you do, you do.  If you don’t, you don’t.  People in the past have not often really known me because either I was too shy to be known or I was too busy trying to figure out how to be nice to you so you would like me.  I cannot be all things to all people at the same time without giving up some of my me-ness.  More over, my shyness has often been interpreted as disinterest or as stuck-up-ness.  Sadly.  People who are initially quiet and reserved are often misunderstood.  Though I don’t consider myself shy anymore, I lived my life for so long worrying about whether or not you liked me.  Sometimes, I even thought it was my job as a Christian for you to like me, because if you didn’t like me, then I’d messed up in my abilities to make you like Christ.  That simply wasn’t true.  If you don’t like me, that is your problem, not mine.  Your loss.  Not mine.  Really.  And Christ, He works in such ways that are much bigger than whether you like me or not.  Bigger even than whether or not you like Him or not.

That is what grace has done for me.  It has given me freedom to come out from behind the mask, from behind your approval.  To write what God’s teaching me.  To be honest with my shortcomings.  To realize that I live for His approval alone, and as I listen to His voice and draw closer to Him, less and less it matters to me whether you approve of me or not.  You have less capacity to hurt me because I depend on your praise less and less.  To be clear, I still struggle with it.  But the Bible teaches me that my honor depends on Him.  You cannot give me what I need to be.  But He can.  He does.

“My salvation and my honor depend on God; He is my mighty rock, my refuge.”  Psalm 62:7

“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

I am His servant, not yours.  And there is freedom in being a servant to Him and not you.

Our life as Christians is not about being good little Christian girls lost in seeking the approval of all the other good little Christians.  The Christian life is about the mess.  It is about how every day God redeems us from our own mess.  When we become too busy trying to look like our lives are cleaned up and fine, we’ve completely forgotten why we followed Him in the first place.  We do this because we are afraid of being different.  We think we must be the same.  And our lives begin to tell others a gospel message that is not the one He taught with His life, death, and resurrection.  Paul gave a serious warning to preaching a different gospel:

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!   As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned! ”  Galatians 1:6-9

More than once recently, I’ve heard others talk about the likeability of another person mainly because of noticeable differences in personalities.

Don’t let your life preach to others that they are “less than” because they are different than you and you don’t know how to deal with their difference.  No one is ever less than you.  Hear me.  No one is ever less than you.  Don’t let others dictate who you are, and don’t dictate to others who they should be.  Don’t be so afraid that you feel you have to hide behind their “more than.”  There is a God who, precious one, made so much of you, that He died for you.  He offers grace to you today, here in this place, and in this moment.  He wants you to know that He accepts you whether or not you are good enough for others.  None of us are deserving.  We are messy sinners.  And we desperately need His grace.

I’m not talking about tolerance.  or equality.  Although you may read that into my post here.  Who did Christ tend to?  The fixed?  The people who thought they had it all together?  No.  The broken and the weak.  And He definitely did not make sure they were all clean before He ministered to them.

I like you.  Because you are really no different than me.  You don’t have to be cleaned up and set free to be welcomed here by me or by Christ.  Hospitality that says you have to be like me is really no hospitality at all.  So be you.  However sinful however different.  Together, we can drink from the well of Christ, and He will bit by bit make us more like Him as we drink, including our sin removal.

Next time you are deciding whether someone is worth liking or not, know that they always are.  It doesn’t mean we all will like one another, but it is worth the risk to know people who are different.  That differences more often than not better mold us into the image of Christ.

Shared with Tracey at Winsome Wednesday, Tracy at Finding Heaven Today, and Joy at Life UnMasked, and Courtney at Women Living Well.