Through this I end up looking at myself and seeing all the flaws that I know others see in me and trying to figure out how I can change myself. Stop speaking up so much, start speaking up more. Be quiet and live by example, God wants us to use our voice. It is a constant battle on all sides of how people want us to be and not be and wanting to feel loved, wanted, and cared for by people around us. So we conform. We conform to what we think others want of us and we hate who we become. And this is not from God.
Galatians 1:10 Am I saying this now to win the approval of people or God? Am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.
Philippians 2:3 Don’t act out of selfish ambition or be conceited. Instead, humbly think of others as being better than yourselves.
God doesn’t want us to be like others but he does call us to love others. God calls us to live our lives to please him, not to please those around us. God speaks to us, gives us our passions, our personalities (and no, we won’t all have bubbly outgoing personalities🙋♀️). Not saying all of this to say we don’t need to continually strive to grow closer to God and be more loving, compassionate, kind people who show His love to others. But we don’t need to live to please others. If God gives you a passion and a fire we need to act on that, even when it’s hard and scary, maybe especially when it’s hard and scary. At the end of this life will we stand before God and say, “well God I didn’t do what you asked because I was scared of people”, which honestly is super tempting to do. God wants more, deserves more.
Sometimes it seems a tricky line to walk, doing what God calls us to do or say but also love others as we do it even when they don’t approve. It doesn’t need to be so complicated. God calls, we obey, we love others, we stay true to the person God created us to be.
And what if we started seeing others this way? What if I open myself up to learn from those who think differently than me, speak differently than me, and see differently than me? What if I see that they are struggling along to be who God has called them to be and to find confidence in that? What if I gave people the benefit of the doubt? What if we see each other? Really see each other?
Parts of Ann Voskamp blog that spoke to me:
What if you stopped apologizing for being you,
stopped apologizing for the way you laugh only like you do,
for the way you drive your decisions like a stake into the landscape of debates,
for the way you let the thoughts that singularly unfurl in the curling neurones of your brain alone,
find their brave way to the tip of your willing tongue as wholehearted words,
for the way you say only what you can, only how you can, only you can do what you can,
find their brave way to the tip of your willing tongue as wholehearted words,
for the way you say only what you can, only how you can, only you can do what you can,
and all your apologies for being,
and being as you are,
ended right now.
ended right now.
What if:
Repentance for what you have done is profoundly different — than reviling who you are.You aren’t too much — to the people who choose to see all of you.
Shame is a bully and grace is a shield and you are safely protected behind the defense of Him naming you his Beloved.
You aren’t alone. We all come into the world seeking someone who’s seeking us. Because we all just want to be seen.
Feeling like you’re too much and not enough is the same fear: the fear of being loved as you fully are.
And there is no fear, because Perfect Love’s moved in here. You don’t have to become less-you only have to come and let yourself be loved. You aren’t too much; you just feel much, see much, love much.
Because the world has lost much of its heart, the world needs more of us to come with so much of our heart instead of so little. Those who are told they are too much-are those who awakes the world in much needed ways.
