Tag Archive | people pleaser

Thanks for things I was not so thankful for!

Nov17

Thanksgiving is upon us. And when we stop to ponder what we are thankful for, all sorts of reasons come to mind: family, friends, our Country, our jobs, our church, our provisions, food, shelter, clothing, our military, God’s beautiful creation. And that’s just scratching the surface!

But I want to focus on something just as wonderful, but perhaps not so obvious. How about all those hard times in our lives? Those times when we experienced rejection, humiliation, abandonment, pain, suffering, betrayal, disappointment, How on earth, we may ask, could we possibly be thankful for these?

I recall a time in my life when I encountered a time of huge disappointment and betrayal. It proved to be a pivotal point in my life. I had made a major decision that apparently many of my community did not agree with. It sent ripples of negative gossip throughout. Even affecting my home-life. For weeks I endured the fallout.

Yet, after a time of several conversations, but more importantly time spent with God in His word and prayer, I arrived at the following conclusions. The turmoil I battled with was due to the fact that some key people of my community opposed my decision. Being the people pleaser that I was, their disapproval was hard to accept. But then a friend reminded me that when I seek to please God, there are always going to be those who would not agree with me. His advice was a game changer for me.

That whole ordeal taught me some much needed and powerful life lessons. God tenderly brought me to the understanding that I was to seek to please Him, not people. By choosing to please God, not man, in this trial, I learned that I could hear from God and act on His guidance whether others agreed with me or not. God grew my faith and I became wiser for having walked this difficult path.

Because of the light God shed onto my life in that instance, I found that my gratitude to God over rode any bitterness I may have felt towards those who had talked against me. It was a lesson I needed to learn, so it took a hard thing to teach it to me. The best reward was that I harbored no ill feelings toward those who had disagreed with me.

Years later, the ones that had instigated the event, came to me asking forgiveness. With assurance, I told them I had already forgiven them. I shared with them how God had put me in a classroom that taught me how to stand on my own two feet spiritually and receive a word from God. That pleasing Him was far more important and necessary than pleasing others.

Being a people pleaser entrapped me. But this ordeal set me free of that. I have thanked God time and again for opening my eyes to my weakness back then.

I have found that it is often those hard things we experience in life that teach us the greatest lessons. And for that we can always be thankful.

Who’s Messing With Your Self Worth?

Oct7

The Cognitive Triangle

The Cognitive Triangle

First we entertain a thought. That thought will cause certain related feelings. Thus, behavior is based on our thoughts and feelings.  p.16, FD

     Several years ago and over a two year period of time, I suffered from a serious bout of depression. I remember battling suicidal thoughts and deep sadness to the point that my prayers became a desperate cry for God to hold on to me because I had no strength left to hold on to Him.  I survived that dark time in my life but that’s about it. It wouldn’t be until several years later as God initiated my training in fiery dart recognition that I would be able to recognize the bondage that defined my existence during those two years. 

Here’s what happened to me and I see this same overused but deadly effective tactic of Satan’s still being used today!

     Refer to the diagram above. In my case I was a people pleaser. If I felt significant people in my life approved of me, then life was good and I felt good about myself. On the other hand, if there was strife or conflict in these relationships life was not good and I became convinced I had little reason to feel good about myself. Self approval you see was strongly connected to what others thought of me. (Or what I thought they thought!)

Do you see the pattern?

     First this negative thought (fiery dart remember) would plant itself into my head producing some very negative feelings or emotions. Never mind that these negative thoughts had no basis in Truth! The poison of these fiery darts seeped into my thinking producing destructive attitudes and behavior. 

     The purpose of these fiery darts, you see, was to diminish any sense of self worth that I might still possess. I was an easy target because it was way too important for me to have the good opinion of those significant people in my life. As relationships with these people deteriorated, so did my self worth.

I wonder if I have touched a nerve? 

     Are you sad seemingly all the time? Are you convinced you don’t measure up and that significant persons in your life don’t approve of you? Does the dangerous thought that your family would be better off without you ever sneak into your mind? Please hold on, for I have glorious news for you in my next post. In the meantime hold on to the following verse,

For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. To give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Then and Now!

Jun18

THEN

As I gaze in thought upon my life prior to my lessons concerning fiery darts, I stand amazed at God’s guidance since those pivotal days.  Often, I find myself comparing the life I lived then with the life I live now.

During those ‘prior’ days, on various occasions depression would reach out and grab me, almost pulling me under.  Negative thinking, which I now recognize as fiery darts, dictated my attitudes,emotions, and actions.  I was a people pleaser and my bent toward negative thinking convinced me that not too many people in my life were very pleased with me.  Unfortunately, it seemed to me that there was abundance of evidence which confirmed my suspicions.  Thus, I spiraled downwards too many times.

Yet, during those days there were two constants in my life that prevented me from hitting bottom–my young children and my faith in God.  My children were small and I never doubted that I pleased them.  They were my constant reassurance that I was needed and loved.  And, although I did not seek out God’s truths of scriptures as I should have, God was constantly sending me messages which reminded me that He loved and accepted me.

It seemed that just when I needed His assurance the most, He would send me a lifeline (and often it was via my children or through a special word from God).  Often, all I could do was to cry out to God for His help and plead with Him not to forsake me (you see fiery darts had planted a serious seed of doubt in that regard). My strength was so deficient.   But because God was faithful to His child, I endured and the day finally came when my instruction on fiery darts began and slowly but surely so did my healing.

AND NOW?

You might think that the problems I endured prior to my fiery dart training no longer trouble my life.  If you thought that you’d be mistaken.  For I am still troubled by fiery dart thinking and some of those same troubles back then, still exist.  Yet, I can claim that though those problems still linger, these are blessed days for me.

How is that possible?

My fiery dart training has taught and continues to secure my freedom.  Learning to recognize a negative thought as a fiery dart and how NOT to permit it to rule my thoughts, attitudes, and actions is probably the greatest source of my victory.  Oh, I still have mighty struggles with fiery darts but they don’t have the power to rule me as they did before.  And that’s the clincher!

Fiery Darts do not rule me now:

And therefore, manipulate me to act and think in ways that would undermine my faith and attempt to pull me back into bondage.

Here are a few verses from The Bible that are powerful in depleting the power of fiery dart thinking:

James 4:7, “Therefore submit to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

Isaiah 54:17, “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper;”

Philippines 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.”

That last verse I have recently discovered is super damaging to fiery dart thinking.  Fill you head with thoughts that are of the nature described in this verse and there just won’t be room for fiery darts to hang around.

So your next step?

Get your hands on my book:  Fiery Darts: Satan’s Weapon of Choice.  I have copies I can sell you (if you want me to mail you one) and it’s available online (try amazon.com and you can get it on Kindle too!)