“And a second is like it; You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39) ESV
Everybody has the need to be loved. I believe the lack of love or the ignorance of the Father’s love is the root of most dysfunction in the world. From broken marriages, broken homes and children being abandoned the absence of love can be traced all through human brokenness.
Many people remedy this lack by becoming what they think others want them to be. This happens because people don’t love themselves so it becomes easier to becomes what others like. We ultimately become people-pleasers because we want to shield ourselves from the pain of rejection that we have felt in the past.
People have rejected who we are so we become something that people will accept. We put up a “mask” that will entertain others because we have deemed the real us to be boring, according to the world’s idea of what boring is. The world does this because we are used to looking at people from an external perspective and not an internal one.
“-For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7) ESV
We can see how an esteemed prophet of God also got confused because he was looking at external appearances and not the heart of man. We can easily judge others by what they look like or dress like instead of looking at their heart condition. This is harder because to know the condition of a person’s heart we have to get to know them. This takes time and we don’t have time to get to know people.
I was never a very athletic person but I do like sports. I remember a day when someone commented to me that my life was a “waste” because I had never played rugby. This is obviously a huge mistake in judgement on the part of this person but somehow these lies can affect us. Not many years after this I gained a couple of kilos of body weight and started lifting weights for exercise. After a time people started complimenting my muscles and the way I looked.
And it felt good. Subconsciously I found a way for people to affirm me and say good things about me. I did not receive this affirmation when I was growing up I now got addicted to what others thought about me. The problem is if you please, people, in one way it becomes easier to please them in other ways. After a while, I also started cussing and swearing like those in my circle to “fit in”.
Wearing a mask to please others is not a good way to live because people are seeing what you want them to see and not the real you. Like I said this is difficult because we want to be accepted and have friends.
The deeper we travel into this fake persona the further we lose sight of who we are. We forget the things that we like to do because we are always doing what others want us to do. We die inside because we are living someone else’s life and not our own. We wonder why we struggle to find fulfilment in life because we are living other’s life and not our own.
The longer we leave this it only gets worse. The fact of the matter is that other people who also have issues feel comfortable around us because they can sense that we are also playing a part just as they are. People are uncomfortable with people who love themselves enough to be who they are even if others approve or not. When I found God one of the first things He did was to take away my habit of swearing. One of my best “drinking buddies” first questions to me was why I did not want to swear anymore.
People won’t necessarily be happy for you when you want to change your life but God gives us the strength in that place to resist falling back into bad habits.
We need to learn to love ourselves. If you are comfortable just look in the mirror and tell yourselves that you love yourself. I promise if you have been struggling with rejection this will be more difficult than you think. Let’s get into the habit of speaking and thinking well of ourselves just like God does. When we love ourselves as we should we can love others as we should.
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made-” (Psalms 139:14)