True Acceptance

This post is a bit of a departure as it is a talk I gave recently for a student ministry overnighter.

Do you remember your first day of school?

I’m not sure how much I remember, but this is what I’ve been told about my first day of first grade. I was going into a new school building. My mom came to drop me off at Mrs. Fellman’s class. She took me inside, got me situated, my little desk, those little chairs, and as must happen eventually, she turned to leave. As many kids do, I started bawling. I grabbed my mom’s leg and wouldn’t let go. Nothing that my mom or the teacher could do would comfort me. Other kids are playing with toys and running around. I am causing a scene. I was inconsolable. Then the door opens and in walks Robbie Swanson. Robbie had been my best friend since we were three. I saw Robbie and stopped crying and happily went off to say hello. I found someone who knew me.

Or perhaps you remember your first day of Jr. High or High School.

I remember going into each of my new classes and scanning the room to see if there was anybody I had gone to elementary school with.

What is it that makes us do those things?

What makes us look for people that we know; who know us?

I would argue that we are hardwired to have friends. We’re hardwired to seek out people that we feel comfortable around. We need each other. We want to be accepted by people. We want our friends to turn to us and say that we’re worthwhile; that our lives mean something.

Think about it, little kids are all about feeling accepted. If they make a piece of art out of macaroni noodles or something they’ll come running to mom or dad or grandma or grandpa and they’ll be waving their masterpiece. My daughter is almost two and she stays with my mom while I’m at work and she does this all the time. I’ll come home from work and my mom will say ‘show daddy your picture’. And she’ll run over and wave it in front of me and start shouting something like: “it it hop see it hop”. I look at it and it’s just a smear of red paint and I’m like “its good honey”. And my mom will say “she painted a bunny”. “bunny, bunny, hop” Gotcha.

That’s how we are as little kids. We want someone to tell us that what we did was good. That’s why it’s so dangerous when people twist and manipulate that desire to be accepted in children. Or for too many of us, sometimes our parents don’t give us that kind of acceptance. Adults can do incredible damage by insisting that their children have to succeed to ‘earn’ their love and acceptance.

Some people even go so far as to say that unless we feel accepted, we can’t love other people or achieve our potential.

I want to look at some common examples of how we show that we all seek acceptance in our daily lives.

We’re not kids. I mean I’m certainly not a kid.

We can see this desire to be accepted in our own lives too though can’t we?

Have you ever had one of your friends get into a relationship that is just toxic? First they isolate themselves and spend time only with their boyfriend or girlfriend. Then everything becomes about the other person. What would so-and-so think about this? I can’t go, so-and-so might not be able come. We stand there helplessly and look at their lives and see them making bad choices and we can’t say anything about it?

Why does this happen?

It happens when they get so wrapped up in being accepted by that one person that the rest of their life gets all out of whack. They stop seeing the warning signs and only see the need to be accepted by that person.

I’ll be honest, when I was in Jr. High and Sr. High, I was all about having a girlfriend. I mean it drove me. I had a really messed up viewpoint where I viewed every girl as a “potential” girlfriend. I’d get stuck on one particular girl and spend all my time obsessing about her. I perfected my lame way of flirting: the “I look at you and then look away just as you look at me.” It was really lame but I had the timing down to a science. The thing was, I really never even got a girlfriend until I graduated high school, but I spent so much of my time and thought into finding one girl who would look at me and go “I like you. I want to spend my time with you.”

Lets look at another example of ways we show that we’re longing for acceptance.

I graduated high school in the year 2000. A lot has changed since then. There’s this thing called [squint and look for the word] “the internet”. I think it’s on the computer.

Probably my favorite thing that’s changed since I was in high school is that being a nerd is cool. It’s cool to read comic books and like superheroes.

When I was in high school this wasn’t the case. There was a comic book store a few blocks from my school and on Saturdays I remember having my mom drive me down there. I always felt like I was on some undercover sting operation. We’d park out front and then I’d walk up the store and pretend like I was just walking down the street and look up at the sign like “oh hey, this is the first time I’ve ever seen this type of store, let me go in and see what it is that they sell”.

I was so embarrassed to be seen reading comics and playing card games. I never talked to anyone but my closest friend or my parents about them. I was hiding that part of myself from everybody else because I didn’t want them to reject me.

This is another sign that we’re all really seeking acceptance: we change parts of ourselves that we don’t think others are going to like or accept.

Have you ever found yourself talking to someone and thinking: “I can’t say X because this person won’t understand” or maybe you don’t think about it consciously like that but you kind of guard yourself to the point where you only talk about certain things with certain people. You’ve got a line and you can talk and talk and talk right up until you get to the line and then: stop. We all do this. I don’t care how popular you are or how much you enjoy talking with others. We hold parts of ourselves back because we don’t think that people will accept us.

Ok this is the point in the talk where you go: so what?

It’s one thing to see how we all are seeking someone to accept us; seeking someone to say “I like you just the way you are”. But how does that affect our lives?

Let me suggest two ways that we can take this knowledge and apply it to our lives:

The first way I think we can learn from this is by simply understanding that we all have this desire for acceptance.

In our own lives we can keep ourselves out of some really hurtful situations by knowing that we seek acceptance. We can keep ourselves from getting into some toxic relationships by recognizing when we might be leaning too heavily into a boyfriend or girlfriend. If we’re really aware of our need, we can catch ourselves before we get into situations that have the possibility to be hurtful.

We can also keep ourselves from becoming emotional leeches by recognizing that we’re really seeking acceptance and finding healthier outlets for that feeling.

We can also learn to be better friends. When we recognize that the people around us want to be accepted, it allows us to think about them first and try and be accepting for them. For example, if you find yourself in a situation where there is a new person in your group, if you know that they probably want to be accepted, you can do simple things like asking them questions and keeping them involved.

Going along with that, one of the ways that I’ve been learning to look out for the concerns of others is to simply be involved in every conversation that I’m part of. Instead of thinking of the next thing you’re going to say, be involved in what your friends are saying. When you pay attention to what they’re saying, you’re telling them that you care about them and that you accept them as valuble people.

So far we’ve looked at this idea of being accepted and seen how each of us longs to be known and love by others. We want someone to come along side us and say “I like you. I want to spend time with you”. We’ve seen how that desire will drive us to some pretty unhealthy places like staying in bad relationships or censoring ourselves instead of standing up for what we believe it.

I think that this longing to be accepted goes far deeper than simply having a big group of friends or having a loving boyfriend or girlfriend. Even if you could have all those things and feel loved and accepted at home, it still wouldn’t be enough. I mean no one knows 100% if what goes on inside our heads. No other person can truly know us and therefore no one can accept us 100%.  And if we’re honest with ourselves, there are parts of ourselves that we’re not proud of. There are things we’ve done that we don’t even like; things we don’t want anyone else to know about because they show just how messed up we are.

We long for acceptance because we’re actually longing for something far bigger than merely the acceptance of a friend. We’re longing to be accepted by God.

God is the only one who knows 100% of our thoughts; the only one who can see us for who we really are: the good, the bad, the ugly. We want someone to accept us 100% but God is the only one who is capable of doing this.

I don’t know what preconceptions you have about God. I don’t know if you view God as some supreme court justice in heaven who’s just looking to punish you for everything you do wrong. I don’t know if you even believe in God. But let me assure you of this. There IS a God and He WANTS to have a relationship with you that is loving and accepting. He knows everything you’ve done and still wants to know you. But we need to be honest about who we are and what we’ve done. We need to accept that we’re jerks a lot of the time and that we’ve done a lot of things that are wrong. We’ve done a lot of evil and horrible things. We’ve lied and cheated. We’ve lusted and tried to fill the holes in our lives with a lot of junk.  We deserve punishment.

 But God wanted to have a relationship with us so bad that He sent his only Son Jesus to take all the punishment that we deserved. That’s how bad he wants to have a relationship with us. In fact, the Bible says that BEFORE we get our lives together, BEFORE we even try to live a life that is pleasing to God. WHILE we were still helpless and pathetic and evil. That’s when Jesus died for us. He didn’t say “hey, get your life together, then come and talk to me”. No, he said, I want to have a relationship with you so badly that I’m willing to die for you even BEFORE you care about me. That’s sacrifice. That’s someone who loves you.

That’s what really drew me into a relationship with Jesus. I suffered from anxiety disorder and depression throughout my jr. high and high school and that kept me from forming any real friendships. All I wanted was to be accepted by someone. It was really that desire for acceptance that led me from a head knowledge about God to a place where I was willing to give up my life to accept what Jesus had done for me.

So I want to ask you today, are you seeking acceptance? Let me encourage you to go to Jesus with that desire. He’s the only one who knows us fully and loves us enough to die for us.