Approval addiction is a killer and destroys the pursuit of truth. It is insidious and relentless and we rarely acknowledge that we deal with it.
I didn't get a lot of feedback from it. It was game day after all and LSU was scheduled to play Florida in 3 hours. So, a lot of people were not in a deep pondering mode, I'm sure. But what I believe happened in many cases is that people read the statement, felt a sting as it tried to drive deep into their consciousness, and shook it off defensively as memory pictures flashed across the screens of their mind that they summarily dismissed.
Embroiled as many are in the changes sweeping through lives in our religious organization as well as many of our close friends and family members, opinions and life-changing direction decisions are rattling the panes in the windows of all of our homes. This one is going this way. That one is going that way. This one "isn't going to live under this any more." That one "is stating my claim as to where I stand."
Running throughout all of the rhetorical hoopla (which is emanating from 360 surround sound) is a not-so-subtle thread of "THIS is where I want to be accepted. It is from those sharing THIS philosophy that I want my identity and acceptance."
All of it is quite disturbing.
In a lot of cases, it seems that alignment with a school of thought depends much on the approval of those ensconced in that particular camp. Or the need to make a wide, black line of demarcation between the camp with whom one totally disagrees and one's present thought processes. To remove oneself from all defined ares of thought doesn't seem to be an option. One must choose..one must step into one box or another...one must align here or align there. To not do so risks disapproval from ALL areas.
Not many people are strong enough to do that.
Not many people are secure enough in who they are and in Whose they are to do that.
Not many people have enough of a true concept of what the approval of God looks like to do that.
It would be very interesting to know how we would live, how we would act, how we would look, and what our relationship to God would be if we lived on a desert island with no one else watching us. Just us, food, shelter, God and His Word.
Nobody to police us, nobody to judge us, nobody to instruct us, nobody to clap for us.
Nobody to tell us how anointed we are, or how right on we are, or how far off we are.
Nobody to impress, nobody to win, nobody to be an example for, nobody.
Just us and God.
Living for the approval of One.
What would life look like then?
I would like for this chair to become my desert island.
I just read this for the first time. I have so many thoughts and feelings on this that I will never be express it in mere words. I've had somewhat of an island experience and it was a personal and spiritual revolution for me. Once you dwell in that place for awhile, it is very hard to accept a lot of the status quo culture and behaviors that have saturated our lives. No longer in the trees, it becomes easy to see the forest, and actually for the first time, I can honestly say that I saw the sun. FDM
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