Pleasing God or man
The words pierced my heart the moment they reached my ears.
Spoken without much thought, the comment was received as an insult, which wasn’t the intention. Even so, that didn’t stop the tears from gathering in my eyes as my heart sank.
I took it personally. It was as if all my efforts and attempts had gone unappreciated and, clearly, weren’t sufficient. I had worked diligently, for weeks, planning and preparing and pouring myself out in service to those I love, and that’s the comment that wrapped it all up.
Excusing myself from the room, I slunk away to the bathroom to cry in privacy.
“[Are you] trying to win the approval of man or of God? [Are you] trying to please men? [If you were] trying to please man, [you] would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10
Conviction washed over my heart as the words from Galatians replayed in my mind.
It was true. I wanted approval from others. I wanted them to say things like: “Wow! You’re really amazing! You’ve worked so hard and done a spectacular job! No one could have done it better than you!”
But those weren’t the words I was receiving, and God was quick to remind my heart that my attempts to please man, and receive praise from man, revealed who I was actually serving the entire time.
It’s not about us, friends. We know that truth, but it’s hard to accept. We desire accolades and praise and approval from man because it’s instant gratification. Hearing nice words and receiving tangible rewards feeds the desires of our flesh, validating the job we’ve done.
But approval from man turns us into a slave of man. We labor and work to please someone whose praises and rewards never truly satisfy, leaving us empty, longing for more, and working ourselves into a tireless frenzy of disappointment and discontentment.
Yet when we serve Christ, longing to please him and seeking his approval, we find that our service is rewarded through joy and satisfaction, which releases us from the flawed and biased opinions of man.
And when we labor and serve Christ, everyone is blessed as a by-product, including us.
I dried my tears while asking for forgiveness. This was a lesson I needed. A reminder that while service to man may go unappreciated, service to God is always noticed and never wasted.
