As I sat in church on Sunday night two weeks ago, tears begin streaming down my cheeks. There were so many looming goodbyes, and my heart felt like it was being ripped out. I can’t remember much about the sermon, my thoughts were a storm contained in my head. Somehow, one line penetrated my consciousness. “We only have to please God, we have an audience of one.”
I love making people happy. All my life I’ve bent over backwards to not make too many waves. One of the comics I relate with shows Charlie Brown looking like he’s been run over by a truck and the caption reads, “The problem with taking the middle of the road position is that you can get run over from both sides.” Talk about the story of my life!
I often try to masquerade my people pleasing addiction as selflessness, “oh, I am just taking care of everyone, trying to make sure no one gets hurt.” When in reality people pleasing is a selfish habit. It’s about my own self centered need to be liked. One year I even tried giving up people pleasing for lent, but unfortunately it’s still something I struggle with.
God’s been working on my need to make everyone happy. I love what Paul says in Galatians 5:4 “Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing him self to somebody else.” Life is not about weather or not others like, or even care about what I’m doing, it’s about pleasing God. For me, this often means accepting God’s unconditional love and grace, something I constantly struggle with.
A few months ago I asked all the people reading this blog for theme ideas, because adventures in Missions requested that we pick one for the year. My favorite of the ideas suggested was ONE. Here is the comment my friend Melissa made about it…”I like your mom’s idea about writing down your favorite thing of the day… lesson of the day… challenge of the day. It will give you structure but not be confining really. One event each day, one lesson, one child, one fear… One thing. Your theme could be “one.” There is one God over all that you will see and all that you will learn.”
As I though about the freedom that comes with living my life for, “the audience of One,” I realized that ONE is the theme that I want to choose for this year. My desire is to share untold stories of one person in each country, to express one victory no matter how small, to tell about one prayer request, and to write about one moment and make it come alive. My hope is to share about each one of these things in a way that brings glory to the One whose opinion really matters.
