Please Like Me

Growing up as a minority, I was always keenly aware of my differences. I threw myself into the culture and people, I loved them, and I worked hard to earn their love and admiration. Then, moving away from my home, with all those formative years having accomplished their work, I landed in, what should have been, my own culture, with all its familiarities. Except nothing was familiar. Everything was strange. I looked and sounded like the other kids, but I wasn’t. So I threw myself into a new culture, with the ever present refrain of, “Please like me!”

The fear of men, and the quest to win approval, are devious companions. You needn’t have grown up in outback Australia to know what I’m talking about, I’m sure you have your own demons to expose in this regard. The idol of approval is hard to topple, and does not cede ground easily. But it will bow eventually. It must. For before it stands the one to whom every knee, and every tongue, must yield allegiance.

And it begins with remembering. We remember to whom we belong. We look to the pattern of our Master, and we hear his voice.

Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. - John 15:20

Though said often, I need to hear it again. “We live for the approval for one.” And should we face the scorn and ridicule of this world, we stand blessed to share in even a fraction of what our Lord bore for us. We are not greater than he, and his path is a holy one to tread in his step.