likeable

I'm coming to a rather startling discovery in my journey-o-faith:

100% of people do not have to like me 100% of the time.

Anyone that has known me for any significant length of time knows that I am a self-described, nearly-obsessive people pleaser. In every area of my life, whether it be family, friends, or work, I try my very best to make sure that I am on good terms with everyone and that (God forbid) there isn't anything so horrible as conflict between us. This mentality can sometimes result in behavior that most normal people would find ridiculous. For example, if I'm talking with someone more confrontational or assertive than me and we disagree about something--how far down the interstate exit is or what Faulkner's first novel was--9 times out of 10 I will concede the point, even if I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm right. It's especially fun when the person quickly realizes his/her mistake and tells me I was right in the first place, making me look like an extra-big idiot for wholeheartedly agreeing with something that was obviously false.

There was the time last semester when a very confused girl in my online writing class e-mailed me a scathing rant in which she accused me of turning the professor against her and complaining that she was getting special privileges for being disabled, since I was the only student who had had an on-site class with her before and knew that she was legally blind. The accusation was so totally off-base, so completely untrue that it shouldn't have even bothered me. I should have been able to simply delete it and leave the girl to her delusions, but instead it kept me awake half the night and was at the forefront of my mind for the next several days. Just the thought of someone being that angry with me--even though I had done nothing to deserve it--made me so anxious that I felt sick.

The worst of it, though, is manifest in my spiritual life and my relationships with friends. Far, far too often I have been the person who has fed my friends the emotionally soothing, completely false bullshit that they've wanted to hear instead of the stinging truth that they needed to hear, just because I didn't want them to be mad at me, even for a moment. I have watched them wander down horribly destructive paths without so much as a heads-up from my seat in the bleachers. I have refused to give people words of prophecy that I knew God spoke to me because I was afraid of how they would react.

People-pleasing is so deceptive because on the surface it looks like a noble thing. Oh isn't that sweet that she cares so much about other people's feelings. But really, it's much more about my feelings than anyone else's. It's about my deriving my sense of worth from other people's opinions, and sacrificing everything in order to maintain those opinions. It doesn't come from some pure and holy desire for peace, because if truth be told it doesn't really bother me when other people are in conflict. It only bothers me when I'm involved.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God." - 2 Corinthians 2:14-17

I've never been comfortable with that verse, with the idea that I have to "smell of death" to people who are embittered against the truth of the Gospel. But I can't ignore it any longer and pretend like passively acquiescing to everyone else's whims is equivalent to loving them, because it's not. On Friday, Matt preached on Ephesians 4 and the Church's calling to "speak the truth in love." He talked about people-pleasing, grudge holding, and gossip, and how none of it is how God wants us to handle conflict. He quoted these two verses from Psalms and Proverbs:

"Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

"Let a righteous man strike me--it is a kindness; let him rebuke me--it is oil on my head. My head will not refuse it."

There's a big difference between being sensitive and being a complete doormat. When we do not speak the truth in love, when we start to value reputation and complacency more than truth, we are acting as enemies to each other, no matter how many arguments we avoid. I want to end this love affair I have with people's approval. It doesn't do anyone any good, which is why God warns against it in the first place. So if I don't bend as easily as I used to, or if I state something that I believe plainly and not padded with conditions and generalities, I'm not PMSing, I'm just try to live with integrity. Like it or not.