Approvaholic I Am (revised)

Pretty much everyday, I go to crosswalk.com.  Many days, it is where I actually read the bible. Today I was pleasantly surprised by incite about myself I hadn't expected, and the admonishment that followed.  Take a minute and read this article called Approvaholics Anonymous.

Before reading this, I had never spent much time thinking of myself as someone who particularly worried about approval.  However, I surely am.  

I have never shied away from approval, as I have found the commonly praised idea of not caring what other people think to be ridiculous.  Everyone cares, and should care, about what other people think... to a degree.  Approval isn't a bad thing.  Like most things, it can be good or bad.  Food can keep you alive and well, and it can be used for gluttony.  Many commands are given to us about encouragement.  Approval is a part of encouragement, though not the whole of it by any means.  It is all about the heart, as always.  We want to make it a set of rules, but instead we have a living breathing God who wants a relationship with us.  He wants our hearts, and for our hearts to want Him.  

Lately I have been discouraged in my heart by lies pertaining to approval.  Just the other day I was telling Kathleen how much I wish that someone would believe in me, and take under their wing in ministry, like Simon under Jesus, or Timothy under Paul.  How wonderful.  Wanting that wasn't the problem.  Waiting for it has been.  I have basically told God and myself that such approval was necessary for me to move forward.  How wicked and selfish is that?  When I read those verses she put up, I was blown away by how Paul really did move forward in ministry without even bothering for the approval of men.  He had the approval of God himself.  Jesus had met him on the road to Emmaus, and changed him forever.  That was enough. 

Father, you are mighty and holy.  Thank you for your abundant grace.  Thank you for everything.  Help us to count our hardships as nothing in comparison with the joy of knowing you.  If we do not have such joy, then may you have mercy on us, and help us break down our walls, Father, for we are incapable.  Give us courage to follow your will despite anything else.  Help us to overcome the lies that bind us, that tell us other things will please.  Apart from you, there is no lasting pleasure.  Allow us to know you.  Withhold no blessing from us.  Be merciful to us, even if that mercy is severe.  Do not withhold.  Do not be idle with us.  Move us Lord.  You are the reason that we live.  You are the sum total of our being.   I ask all this in your son Jesus' name, amen.

P.S.  By "sheer luck" I found myself onto the website of Amy Stroup, a singer/songwriter I have recently discovered and come to appreciate.  I was reading her biography on her site, and found it very interesting to know that she studied classical guitar (unsurprisingly) and marketing (surprisingly).  The site mentions how at first this might seem ridiculous, but that Amy knew that the market had changed, that the old way of getting your music out dying, that you now could be independent, and get your music out grassroots through the web, without a record deal.  Think about that.  I know that it has encouraged me to explore the possibility of self publishing should I not get picked up by a traditional publisher, something my approvaholic self was too prideful to allow as of even yesterday.

I had to put this up, as it talks about ukuleles.  

Lyrics of the day:

VERSE:
Love changes everything
I see my life in daydreams
Little scenes of you and me

And there you are singing to me
Soft little melodies
On your ukulele
Swinging in the summer breeze

PreChorus:
I could think about it
A thousand more times
I could think about you love
The rest of my life

CHORUS:
Uo ohh I could
Uh ooh I could
And I know love has treated you coldly before Left you lonely
Oh but not anymore
I was made to love you strongly

Verse 2:
Time doesn’t exist
Melts away in a mist
With the touch of your lips
Oh oh

PreChorus:
I could think about it
A thousand more times
I could think about you love
The rest of my life

CHORUS:
Uo ohh I could
Uh ooh I could
And I know love has treated you coldly before Left you lonely
Oh but not anymore
I was made to love you strongly

Writer: Amy Stroup

I believe in you, and am so very proud of you.