If it’s not right, it’s not right. What I really mean is, if it’s not perfect, it’s not right. That’s the kind of person I have been all my life. I think it started with just people pleasing—I wanted to do right, be right, perform right, so that others would like me, compliment me, praise me, approve of me. Their opinions drove me to this need to do everything in my power to get it ALL right!
But by whose standard?
Mine. Not theirs. Not really. I presumed to know what others’ standards were so that I could appease the masses. Yet no matter how hard I tried, the masses wouldn’t accept me. Even if they had, would that have been the real me? Or just the me I wanted them to see?
I think to some degree, we are all people-pleasing perfectionists. The pursuit for worldly accolades is a chasing after the wind, a fleeting afterthought once the praise has flown by. Maybe it will be free some of us to know that we could more easily “hold a moonbeam in our hands” than adequately and permanently placate the multitudes.
No matter how many likes we get on social media, how many followers we have on Instagram, how many compliments we get on our new clothes, how many awards we get for our accomplishments, how much we get paid for the work we do—these are based on the momentary, unreliable opinions of other perfectionists, people out to collect commendations too.
Don’t let people’s compliments go to your head, and don’t let their criticisms go to your heart. The degree to which you do either of these things is the degree to which you’ll be ruled by what other people think of you. And, boy, I know from experience how dangerous it is to build the stability of my identity on the fickle opinions of others.
TerKeurst, Lysa. Made to Crave Devotional (Nashville: Nelson Books, 2011), p. 54.
The stability of our identity.
Would it free you to realize that your identity has nothing to do with the evaluation of others? This truth removes the shame in us of not measuring up, not getting it all right, not receiving the likes, the followers, the compliments, the awards, the salary—our worth cannot be summed up in statistics, in judgments, in honors, in pats on the back. The hunger for more respect, more acknowledgement, more acceptance is just as fleeting as my physical hunger for more cashews.
And our potential has nothing to do with earthly opinion, either.
“Set your mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on things that are on the earth [which have only temporal value].” (Colossians 3:2 AMP)
God is the decider of our worth and our potential, the orchestrator of our destinies, and the determiner of our value, both in heaven and on earth. Because of His great love and the blood paid by His Son, we never stand in shame of not measuring up. Our identity is secure; our significance, established.
“An excellent woman [one who is spiritual, capable, intelligent, and virtuous], who is he who can find her? Her value is more precious than jewels and her worth is far above rubies or pearls.” (Proverbs 31:10 AMP)
This is not an earthly opinion.
The Word is God’s view on every matter in and under heaven, including our value to Him. Being His excellent woman (or man) is all we need ever strive for: His eternal opinion of a Lover to His spotless Bride. Our potential was ensured on the Cross. We work for Him alone.
The Art of Choosing True Life 