Every child wants acceptance and approval from his or her parents.
From a young age, my desire to be loved and accepted led me to put others’ feelings first. When my mom made the decision to separate from my dad and move out of our house, I remember thinking, “I want this for you if this is what makes you happy.” Now as an adult I realize that this mindset came from a place of wanting approval. My young mind thought that if I just supported my mom in her decision she would still love me.
This need for approval continued as I grew older. After my dad remarried, my step-brother received a lot of attention for his poor choices. I took the opposite approach and did my best to be “good.” I worked hard for good grades, took advanced classes, and tried to stay out of trouble. I still made my fair share of mistakes but my teen years were molded by my endeavor to be “good” in multiple people’s eyes, striving to earn acceptance and approval. Unfortunately, my efforts never did seem to pay off. I left my father’s home after high school with a gaping hole in my soul, desperate to be filled with acceptance and approval.
As we often do, I took the events that were happening in my life and transposed them onto my Heavenly Father.
I had prayed to accept Christ a countless number of times as a young girl growing up in the church. I followed what I thought was the formula for salvation and then started the work of seeking God’s approval. It was not a conscious decision but a natural continuation of the life that I was already living.
Guilt became the indicator of how “good” my relationship with God was. Was I praying enough? Did I read my Bible enough? Was I listening to the right music? If I had a guilty feeling in response to any of these questions, it let me know I was not on the right track. I needed to do better; I needed to read more, pray differently, change this, or do that. The problem is the guilt never went away. From my perspective, I was continually disappointing God.
Reading Timothy Keller’s book Galatians For You rocked my world.
In it he states, “God called us, we didn’t call Him. And God accepted us right away despite our lack of merit. This is the order of the gospel. God accepts us and then we follow Him.” Keller goes on to explain, “If you add anything to Christ as a requirement for acceptance with God—if you start to say: To be saved I need the grace of Christ plus something else—you completely reverse the ‘order’ of the gospel and make it null and void.”
I was completely guilty of this! I had always believed that to be accepted by God I needed to believe Jesus died for me and I had to live for Him. The truth is I was accepted by God before I ever knew anything about Him. He accepted me when I was an ignorant child, and even when I knew about Him as a young adult but chose not to pursue Him.
This was an important paradigm shift. I chose to believe that I was accepted by God whether I read my Bible or not, was kind to others or acted selfishly, was gracious or judgmental. This led to a whole new level of freedom that I never knew existed.
Guilt no longer directs my actions.
I can approach the Lord in prayer because I want to, not because I have to in order to stay in His good graces. My time in the Word has more meaning and my choices come from a place of deeply felt love and approval from God. The work of the cross has become even more incredible, full, and complete to me. This perspective has also opened the door to allow God to point out the aspects in my life that I need to change, not for His approval or acceptance, but to go deeper in relationship with Him.
If you have ever looked for approval from the Father and tried to earn His love, know that you don’t have to!
He loved you and accepted you long before you were born. Live in the freedom of knowing that you are already enough!
