Wanting People to Like You is Actually Not a Bad Thing

Abundant Grace: Life Coaching for Christians Helping You Own Your Worth, Rest in Your God-Given Identity, and Live with Confidence

209 - As Christians navigate living in a fallen world, I see many grapple with whether or not we should trust other people. The suggestion seems to be to only ever trust God and then we'll protected from harm from people. But this isn't good theology or a best practice, it's a form of self-preservation. We're allowed to have expectations of people and we're allowed to desire to be cared for by people. There's a lot of shame I see in Christians as they wrestle with their desire to be loved, liked, and cared for.
You're desire to be loved and accepted exactly as you are is not a problem to be fixed, it's a need to be tended to. It's also important to be aware of how we're going about getting this need tended to. It's easy to make ourselves smaller or to be easy-going in an attempt to control whether or not we will be accepted. We don't want to rock the boat or give anyone an excuse to walk away which can lead to people pleasing and doing everything in our power to avoid them leaving.
Each of us is magnetic. We attract and we repel. When we live in authenticity and know our worth we attract people who value us and accept us-they are "our people" and we also repel those who don't get us or who don't accept us right where we're at. And this is a good thing!! It's tricky to learn but it's so darn freeing.
If you want to deepen your connection to God and yourself so that you can have stronger relationships with others, Emily's Connected course is for you!