Chameleons are fascinating creatures with their most amazing feature being able to blend in to their environments. It is the way they protect themselves from predators. However, if you're a human chameleon that is a very dangerous thing, because who you are depends on who you are with at the time. So, you actually become who you hang around. Sometimes that can be who you actually are, but sometimes you can lose your whole identity just by changing company. In the Bible, God says you can't be a people pleaser and please Him, and yet I've lived most of my life that way. Since the death of my sweet mom, I've had time to reflect on her life and mine. My mother lived a very hard life as a single mother. Mom was a major people pleaser. She searched for love and companionship almost to her death, not totally realizing she had it all along. She loved Jesus fiercely, but I question whether she ever fully realized how much He loved her. Because life had dealt her so many hard knocks, I believe she maybe questioned God's love. Or maybe, I'm just pushing that off on her, because that is the way I think I felt as a teenager and young adult. Do you ever question God's love when bad things happen to you? It's definitely a normal reaction, I would think. Just like Mom, toward the latter years of my life, looking back, I can definitely see God's protection and presence in all the bad things. I think God warns us against people pleasing as protection from harm. A warning I just never could quite grasp, I wore people pleasing like a badge of honor, wanting to have tons of friends and for everyone to like me. It's quite arrogant to even think everyone could like you, and yet I didn't get it. I wanted the approval of my peers more than I wanted God's approval. I thought I needed it to be happy and whole, that somehow I was not good enough to even exist if I didn't have it. So when things were good and I seemingly had approval from others I was on Cloud 9, but when I didn't I would sink to despair and for some weird reason blame it on God. Why did you make me like this God? I took all my anger out on Him, the only One that loved me just the way I was and loved me enough not to leave me there. That's why our identity is so very important! We wear many earthly identities, such as student, mom, dad, sister, daughter, and the list goes on and on. But if you put your full identity in those things when they are taken away from you, you become nothing and feel so very lost, questioning, "Why am I even here, God?"
This leads me to my whole purpose in writing this blog. I want to give you the greatest gift I've ever received. I didn't have to earn it, I didn't have to work for it, I didn't have to change one thing about me to get it! The greatest gift I ever received was my true identity in Christ! Once you have it, you can never lose it. Once you realize how fully known and fully loved you can be, no matter what, you can rest secure and be at peace with yourself, but it is a process. For me, it has been a life long process, because I was so ingrained in being a people pleaser, but God has been faithful even in my pain. I've been extremely hurt by others and I have hurt other people because I was so very insecure, and I can still do that at times. However, the more I read God's words through the Bible, the more I pray for His help and guidance, the closer He draws me to Him, the more I feel His presence and love for me, the further I get from people pleasing. It doesn't mean I still don't want people to like me, it just means I don't have to lose who I truly am to make another person feel comfortable. The more I can set boundaries in relationships, which has also been a really, really hard thing for me as well, the more satisfied I become and less angry and the less hurt. Don't get me wrong, I don't know if I'll ever totally be free of this, this side of heaven, but I have hope that I will, because the Bible says, "Who the Son sets free, is free indeed!" I hope you too can find your true identity and security in Christ, because once we do, it is absolutely all we will ever need or desire."
