“I have loved (do love) you with an everlasting love” (Jer. 31:3); “Fearing people is a dangerous trap.” (Prov. 29:25); “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people (Eph. 6:7)
Heavenly Father, of all entanglements and traps, being too impacted by what people think of us is the most daily and deadly. Acceptance, affirmation, affection can be as addictive as cocaine and heroin. Criticism, shame, and rejection can paralyze us, then emotionally kill us, We need your daily mercies, copious grace, and wisdom from above.
For starters, make your love for us more real than anything else—more satisfying, compelling, and essential. Father, like hummingbirds drinking sweet nectar deeply and often, make knowing you and your love our life-giving nectar—sweeter than “honey and the honeycomb—more precious than much fine gold” (Ps. 19:10). If that’s never been our experience, bless us with it now.
Then free us to love and serve people, as unto you—whether our love is acknowledged, ignored, or despised. If our most unhealthy relational pattern is living as affirmation junkies, or with a paralyzing dread of contempt and rejection, or as those too enmeshed, or if we’ve become “peace-at-any-price-makers”—help us break the cycle before it breaks us.
Living free, loving well isn’t easy. But it’s so good and so what you’ve saved us for. We pray extra special grace for those of us (and our friends) who inhabit complex relationships. Mental/emotional illness, “little-n-narcissism,” family members with dementia—these are a few scenarios (of many) which require outside help, wisdom from the seasoned, and the fellowship of a few good Gospel-friends. We look to you, Father, to supply whatever is needful. So Very Amen.