Not All Praise Is CReated Equally

​The things people will praise us for are not always the same things that God will praise us for. And if you're someone who aims to receive the praise of God, that's important to meditate on.

We live in a time when it is easier than ever to seek the approval of people. This very site is willing to pay you if enough people respond to your content.

There's nothing wrong with that. I think people should be able to make money with their messages. But the more one gets paid because people like their messages, the more inclined one can become to create messages they know people will like.

If you're anything like me, and you feel called to put messages into the world that honor God, you eventually discover a quiet competition taking place inside you. It's a competition between the praise of people and the praise of God. And again, the problem is, the things people applaud are not always the same things God delights in.

I believe, to some degree, we all crave praise. We crave to be seen and known and valued. It is written into our being from the moment of birth, when we fight with all our baby might to be accepted by those around us.

It is a fight we never truly relinquish.

For those of us who believe in God, we are asked to find God's praise sufficient. We are asked to find it more than enough to know that God sees us and knows us and values us. We are asked to know this because it protects us from becoming addicted to the praise of man.

But you know what? Personally, I find that difficult. Because the approval of people can sometimes feel more real than the approval of God. And in the moments when I'm just not feeling God's high fives, I can always do something to gain man's high five. Which can make the high fives of man very seductive.

Of course, none of this is challenging if you crave no one's praise more than another's. Praise is simply praise.

But me personally, I long most to receive the praise of God in my life. Which requires me to constantly ask, "I hear the approval of man in this, but do I hear the approval of God?"

And when the answer is no, I must ask, "Am I willing to abandon the approval of man—and all that comes with that approval—to hear the approval of God?"

Those are tough questions to answer, especially living in a day when the approval of man can come with great benefits—to include power and money and fame. But for one like me, seeking to hear the praise of God, they are questions that can not go unasked.

Or unanswered.

"For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?... If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ."
— Galatians 1:10