Encouragement

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Hello. My name is Rob.
(Hi Rob!)
I’ve been a member of AA for 28 years now. I made my last poor decision a few days ago when I told a half truth, so a friend of mine wouldn’t think I was stupid. I’ve been approval free ever since. I vow never to do it again!
Many of us have never actually said such words in a support group to assist us in our addiction, but most of us probably could. As long as blood runs through our veins, we remain proud members of a much less famous organization also known as AA: Approvaholics Anonymous. Much like its counterpart, many of its members never fully recover from the habitual inclination to look for the approval of others.
For better, or for worse, we are all wired to desire and to seek the approval of someone. Originally, created in perfection, this innate need is interwoven into our very fiber, and is, by design, for our good. Our wise and benevolent Creator gave it to us so that we would remain connected to Him. In a state of perfection, it keeps us focused on our dependence on the only One able to fulfill our deepest longings. Only through a constant realization of our desperate need, knowing our every breath is provided by Him and believing His Spirit pumps our heart toward every beneficial action, do we truly exist. Any other mentality toward life is a mirage. We fool ourselves if we think we live, act or exist for a moment without Him.
As much as we may believe we need Him by faith, everything else we sense around us tells us otherwise, and we often fail to apply this reality to our, sometimes mundane and seemingly purposeless, pilgrimage on earth.
Because God is, to paraphrase Frozone's wife in Disney/Pixar's, “The Incredibles”, the only good we're ever gonna need, we do ourselves a huge disservice every time we seek approval from someone other than God.
Of course, progress can only begin in AA once we admit we have a problem. Not only, do we require the approval of God, since we were also made to love and to be loved by others, we want others to like us, as well. There's nothing wrong with this, but it becomes an issue when we make decisions and act based on the responses of family, friends or other loved ones. We mess our lives up badly enough while trying to keep this circle of influence happy, but unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. For approvaholics, anyone we meet quickly becomes a prospect for us to obtain acceptance. Even those we've never met can control our general behaviors. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Most of us wouldn't follow rules, if we didn't care what people around us might think.
But, the damage begins we stop being okay with the way God has made us and try to be someone we’re not in order to please others. We try to manufacture a value for ourselves based on how much we like ourselves at the moment or what others think of us. But this kind of opinion fluctuates often, and Scripture tells us, even when we feel good about ourselves, we cut ourselves short. The Bible is constantly confirming how great an esteem God has for us. To the degree which we continue to read and believe these truths, we want for nothing more.
For example, we are told that:

“In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence... For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:12,14-20).


Because of our fear, failures and lack of faith, we do not feel that God could possibly approve and accept us the way He does, and yet Paul says it’s because of the small amount of faith we do have in Christ that we are able to go to God with great confidence. We are called to believe that because God esteems Jesus with the perfect love that only He deserves, we are free, not only to associate with God, nor to be His friends, but we are given His very name and are members of the family of God. It is out of His riches that He plants us and establishes us in a love so great that we are barely able to grasp its vastness.
Most of the time, this doesn’t make any sense to us, because we know how we really are, so we look for others to confirm that we are okay. Unfortunately, the only thing others validate about us, is that we are horribly broken and that we are not even close to mending things on our own. That’s why Paul prays that we will discover that God loves us in spite of our pitiful state. He prays that we believe by faith that God loves us in this amazing, unconditional way, even though it surpasses our knowledge and makes no sense to us at all.
In fact, if at any time we feel that we warrant God’s love, then we lack objectivity and we perceive that we possess more righteousness on our own than we really do. To feel this way is dangerous and keeps us from a real relationship with God.
On the other hand, when His power is at work within us, we are filled with His fullness, rather than becoming full of ourselves. To be filled with Him is to be emptied of ourselves and to know that we are worthless no matter how well we think we’ve done or how many people speak well of us. Yet, the reverse is also true. No matter how low we sink or how much we may disappoint others, we know God proudly embraces us without hesitation.
Since we know by faith that we have incredible value in God’s eyes and His unqualified approval, we need not seek it anywhere else. We are free to be flawed, weak and faithless knowing that’s not how we have to live. In as much as we believe by faith that He considers us as precious and dear to Him as Christ, this knowledge becomes the power that works bravery within us in awkward situations, courage as we face painful rejection and love when we are assured only ridicule.
Just as the alcoholic learns he doesn’t need a drink to get him through the day, we recovering approvaholics slowly begin to learn that with Christ dwelling in our hearts, we have all the approval we need.

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