Branch On The Vine

By: Alli Matthews

I recently listened to a speaker who said self-confidence is one of the most important qualities needed to gain success. 

This advice takes me back to sophomore year of high school. I had a great group of friends, but if I was in a class without them, I was terrified to talk to new people. I would sit at my desk and pretend to do homework just to avoid the potential awkwardness of conversations. I would glance at the clock often, waiting impatiently for the bell to ring so I could get to the safety of a class with friends. 

I felt so insecure about talking to people that I would watch YouTube videos about what it means to be confident from a self-proclaimed relationship expert. From this random, worldly man who I didn’t know, I was trying to learn how to make friends, flirt, and be confident in myself. His advice was something along the lines of: “Fake your confidence until you wake up one day feeling truly confident and don’t need to fake it anymore.” 

As an insecure 15-year-old girl, I latched onto that advice. It appeared to work too. Suddenly, I was making new friends. I pretended I wasn’t scared to talk with upper classmen, and then I started getting to know them. The people who knew me then would refer to this season as me “coming out of my shell.” 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for this change in my life. I’m thankful that I have grown and matured from a timid teenager into a woman who loves to connect with new people, (not to mention that it’s very necessary for my job as a physician assistant). 

However, no one told me that I would experience social anxiety again someday. And more intensely than ever before. 

No one told me that my problem wasn’t just a lack of self-confidence. 

No one told me that the true problem was my obsession with pleasing people, and that’s probably because I hid it pretty well. 

Friends, I’m telling you today that living your life to please people will paralyze you. Like I did, you can pretend your way to self-confidence. You can pretend your way to being a social butterfly. But when you pretend your way to something, that often makes it a weak and shallow quality that is prone to eventual destruction. 

God has been teaching me about how much I still struggle with wanting to please people and the negative impacts it has on my life. Phylicia Masonheimer listed a few symptoms of being a people-pleaser in her newsletter email including: 

• “Anxiety when someone might be ‘mad’ at you.
• Fear of saying the wrong thing and losing affirmation.
• Extreme highs and lows based on others’ responses.
• Turning to apathy and self-pity when you fail someone.
• Second-guessing every decision, stance, and word, making sure you’re pleasing the people you want to impress.
• Unintentionally putting people in ‘tiers’ of those whose opinions matter and those who’s opinions don’t, so you know how to act with each.
• Perfectionism: unrealistic standards for yourself meant to preserve others’ view of you.”

I don’t know about you, but I can relate to most of those. 

In saying all of this, I don’t want you to hear the message that you should never care what people think of you. God often uses wise people in our lives to help us make better decisions. If you know someone who loves Jesus and is living his or her life devoted to Him, you should care what that person thinks of you. 

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11

However, there is a difference between wanting to align your life with the way Jesus lived by seeking the support of other Christians and obsessively striving to live a life that other Christians approve of. Who are you truly living for – other people or God?

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Galatians 1:10

So if you’re like me, and you’ve been imprisoning yourself to a life of people-pleasing, this is your chance to let Jesus set you free. 

John 8:36 says, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” When you come to Jesus, you can be confident that you already loved as you are. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He died for us to reconcile us so that we could know Him and love Him. 

I think our world gets it wrong. Self-confidence that is created by pretending to be confident to craft an image of yourself for other people is not true confidence. We can find a much stronger and more reliable confidence in the God who never fails. I’m going to unpack what it means to have confidence in God in next week’s post. 

You probably know in your heart whether you struggle with living to please people rather than God. I encourage you to pray and ask God to reveal things you do to please people so that He may refine this area of your life, and you can reflect His light to the world. If you’re weary and burdened by the weight of people-pleasing, I’ll leave you with this invitation from Jesus: 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30.

References

Masonheimer, Phylicia. “What Dying To Self Feels Like.” Received by Alli Matthews, 04/16/2024.

Photography by Ethan Hall

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