THE ADDICTIVE THOUGHT-LIFE THAT BETRAYS ALL OF US

There have been many contests where I have wished to finish well.  Sometimes I might finish close to the top. At other times I wouldn't rank.  There is one issue where I seemed to be the greatest loser.  When you wish to please others you set yourself up to lose.

This has been one of life's toughest lessons for me.

I'm driven.  I believe.  If I felt that I simply wasn't performing well enough for others's expectations, I would step up my pace.  But for some, it was never enough. It turned out I was too weak to budge their approval.

What disappointment.

For personalities such as mine, to fail to please others is the major crisis of any moment.  Rejection feels like emotional death.  The penalties are stifling.  For me, there was nothing worse than someone basically telling me I was useless.

As I watched Jesus and studied people, I began to notice that I had become addicted to approval.  He couldn't/didn't please the crowds.  Why did I think I could? Furthermore, I woke up one day realizing that those who were aggressive in pointing to my lack also had very much lack as well.  We....we were all just alike.

Superiority doesn't belong in the human camp.

One must guard, though, the temptation to point at others' failures rather than our own.  To bring a person down does not truly build us up.  We are merely playing the same game.

The addictive thought-life that betrays all of us is that we in some form should be accepted by all.  After all, we are us!  Not everyone will like us.  We don't like everyone; yet we feel justified in the latter.

I see only one way out; Jesus.  Tullian Tchividjian pegged me (and maybe you) when he wrote, I was learning the hard way that the gospel alone can free us from our addiction to being liked---that Jesus measured up for us so that we wouldn't have to live under the enslaving pressure of measuring up for others.

Now, I have said all of this to make a significant point.  I believe much of the heroics of mankind are buried in the caves of addictive thought-life.  Men, women, and teens are afraid.  Very good, blessed, and gift believers are suffocating beneath the smothering of wishful acceptance.

I watch men, women, and children live in the church as if drugged.  Afraid to move for fear of getting an effort wrong, they simply dumb-down and move with the herd. No ambition except one prevails; I want to be liked.

Imagination, risk, creativity are abundant among us; but too much of it is lost in the shredders of addicted minds just wishing for that one major goal; Like me.

Today?  I still die on the inside when I discover or am reminded of those who don't like me.  Many don't.  Yet, I must not reduce my efforts to pleasing the critics or I'll never step out of the house.  Please--you who live with nagging inferiority--try to step up and step out.  A world of lonely people--hurting people--need you.  Don't deny them because you are hunkered down within the safety of your personal turtle shell.

Jesus didn't just rescue us from our past just to hand us a future.  He rescued us for the present.  No longer slaves to fear and self-preservation, we are able to reach out. Others need us.  They cannot afford for us to live buried in our fears.

Please, think life!  Think hope!  Think wonder!  Think value!  Think need of others!