Sometimes I wonder who is running my life? I like to think that I am living according to Gods plans and purpose for me. But often find myself being led down a path where I have no desire to go listening to the opinion and thoughts of people more than God then find myself doing the things they have suggested. I think the phrase is people pleasing.
God speaks clearly in the Bible about not pleasing people but by living according His ways
“the fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.” Proverbs 29:25
So how do we extract ourselves from this destructive habit? I think it’s great when we have a light bulb moment so we are able to recognise what is happening. What I have noticed is that when I don’t have a clear sense of who I am or where my focus is heading then at very moment I am vulnerable to the misleading of well-intentioned people popping ideas into my head. My husband often points out to me that people will always want us be like them and try and steer our lives to look similar which makes sense when you sit back in observation.
Knowing who we are and being secure in our relationship with God is a good foundation to have in place when trying to break the people pleasing habit. Over the years I have been on holidays I didn’t wish to go on, accepted jobs in the past I didn’t want to do and then shared houses with people I didn’t even like all in the name of people pleasing. I can smile as I look back but at the time it caused a lot of chaos and pain.
This is where devoting myself to following God and his calling on my life has been the best thing I have ever done. Through learning about my true identity and destiny in God I realised that I am made in his design and therefore he knows the best paths for to take and who with so really I need to take more notice of what he says and where he leads rather than people who may assume to know me. But really who can know our innermost being apart from our creator?
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.”
Psalm 139:13 – 16
So the tools I use to arrest any people pleasing habit that rears its head have been to be confident and secure in who I am as a woman, be sure of where I am heading so living by vision rather than circumstance and letting God influence me more than people and to have the courage to say “No” trusting my own intuition and Gods leading in my life.
Like any other addiction/ habit we must look underneath the why we develop certain behaviours and work on bringing healing to those places inside us along with practising sobriety from the habit we are trying to break.
Your spiritual life 