120115-PeoplePleaser

I was having coffee with a friend of mine a few days ago who was relating to me how he had suffered a lot of criticism from people as he had come closer to living out his Christian Faith. He explained that many of the people who criticized him for his faith were in many cases people close to him whom he regarded as his friends.

In my experience, I have also found that many of the people that tend to question the genuineness of one’s faith, or efforts at furthering the Kingdom are those that are close to you or at least, those who regularly interact very closely with you on a daily basis.

So what happens is that we often get hurt by these opinions and criticisms and in some way we feel less worthy because of them. The reason is that we don’t want to offend anyone or we don’t want “fall out of favour” with anyone. In essence, we just want to please everyone.

I was thinking of the time that Jesus returned to His hometown during His ministry. The Gospel accounts tell us that while He was there He couldn’t perform many miracles because of their “”lack of faith”. It also says that many of the people there questioned who he was and by what authority he practiced His ministry.

When I consider this story, it illustrates that you cannot and will not please everybody. Just like Jesus in His hometown, many of those closest to us are going to question us and criticize us for our faith.

I know someone who told someone that they’d had known for years that they were going to preach Gods word and this other person told them that they needed to go and preach to themselves first before preaching to others because they thought the  “would be” Preacher had much “bigger” problems in their life.

How’s that for criticism? What a way to show ones support for another. How do you handle people like that?

Now its interesting how Jesus handled the situation He faced in His hometown. He simply said, “A Prophet is not welcome in His own hometown.” Then, He didn’t try and change their minds. He didn’t try to explain Himself. He didn’t even try to convince them that they were wrong. In fact, He didn’t even argue with them at all. The Gospel of Luke reports that the situation was so tense that the crowds tried to kill Jesus because they were so angry. He let them have their opinion and He simply walked away.

What Jesus knew was that you cannot please everybody all the time. Some people will support you and others will criticize you. Many who criticize will be close to you (like folks in your hometown…or even your friends and family), if they do, instead of trying to please them and everyone else; instead of arguing with them and trying to convince them otherwise; maybe we need to do what Jesus did. Maybe we just need to walk away.

I was once watching an interview with the Musician “Gordon Sumner” who is famously known as “Sting”. The interviewer was highlighting very difficult times in Stings life and also discussing the many people who had got hurt and the relationships that hadbroken down during the earlier days of his career. Eventually he asked Sting what he thought now of these broken relationships that he had left behind. He wasn’t happy about it, but he simply answered by saying this: “I was evolving…there were casualties.”

We cannot be “People Pleasers”. We cannot sit and argue with every person who offers criticism although it is often good to take note of the criticism and evaluate whether there is any genuine substance to it. If so, adapt accordingly. If not, walk away. As we evolve in our Faith and service of the Kingdom, maybe like Sting, we should understand that there may be casualties in the process.

After all, where people battled to accept Him and His teaching, Jesus walked away.

 

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