“It’s a beautiful moment when somebody wakes up to this reality, when they realize God created them so other people could enjoy them, not just endure them.” Donald Miller
There’s a level of intimacy required with loving someone. If it’s a real relationship/friendship, there is an honesty, a transparency, that’s necessary.
People are important. Love is important.
But often our insecurities get in the way.
I’m currently reading Scary Close, a book by Donald Miller, about finding real intimacy in relationships by putting a stop to our approval-based performing. A part in the book goes like this,
William Blake said about Jesus that he was “all virtue and acted from impulse, not from rules.” If we are to be like him, aren’t we to speak and move and do, to act upon the world and take new ground from the forces that work against our unique genius and beauty? What if part of God’s message to the world was you? The true and real you?
Why hide who we are — our quirks, our hurts, our weaknesses, our strengths — striving to please other imperfect, wacky, ridiculous human beings? (No offense, guys.)
I believe God’s heart for me is to have a desire to please Him, out of my love for Him, because He’s worthy of my obedience, and because He’s there to help me. He doesn’t want me to live trapped in a cycle of performance for other people, living in a perpetual state of inadequacy in a world that LIVES for comparison.
I think He created us to be relational people so that we could open up with our story, to help others through similar circumstances.
I created this graphic as a reminder for myself, to love all but aim to please only One.
These are such important words to live by! Thanks for this beautiful reminder. I was actually wondering where you got the graphic, until I read that you created it! I LOVE it!!
I loved Scary Close so much. He described so well what it looks like to let down our walls and invite people in to the hard, broken parts of our story. This is beautiful, Chelsea!
Thank you so much, Brittany! I did another one that you can find under ‘Downloads.’ :)
Lauren, I was telling my husband yesterday how surprised I was that more than a handful of times, when I read something, inside I was going “Hey, me too.”
It has certainly opened my eyes a good bit!