Sunday message · I Dare You To Move series
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Message Summary
Continuing the I Dare You To Move series, Danielle Allen takes on a circle she knows well: people pleasing. With humorous drawings she lists the signs, from trying to be who others want you to be to not knowing what you want, avoiding anger and finding it hard to say no. Her bottom line: we move out of the circle of people pleasing by living for an audience of one, which simply means pleasing God first, before other people.
Danielle’s people pleasing began in childhood and grew to include teachers, classmates and bosses. It came to a head in her mid-30s at her dream job at a local church, where she took well-meant suggestions as verdicts on whether she was doing a good job. After a year of saying no every week to a group with other plans for a Bible study, which she dubbed the year of no, the strain led her to leave. Scripture shows the same fear of people. Moses at the burning bush worried what people would think of him, Peter denied Jesus three times, and King Saul admitted he disobeyed because he was afraid of the people.
Pleasing those we love is not wrong, Danielle says, but the line is fine, and people pleasing can make us miss God’s purposes. In Grace for the Good Girl, Emily P. Freeman describes how people became her measuring sticks. In 1 Corinthians 4, with the church divided over which leader was better, Paul calls himself a servant and steward who must be faithful, and says it is a very small thing to be judged by them, since the Lord is his judge. We are stewards of the life God has given us, not managers of someone else’s agenda.
Danielle offers three moves. First, change your mind by choosing your audience. People want different and sometimes wrong things, and she quotes Pastor Phillip Santillan that we can’t be liked by everyone and be effective in anything, then juggles dog toys to show what juggling everyone’s expectations looks like. But we can always please God, and Paul says our purpose is to please God, not people (1 Thessalonians 2:4). Second, change your direction by making people smaller and God bigger, since fearing people is a dangerous trap (Proverbs 29:25). That means getting comfortable with no. As a life coach she reminds clients that “every yes to something is a no to something else,” and, following Jon Acuff, that a no needs no long explanation.
Third, change your heart by letting God define you. God does not want a checklist; he wants our hearts, so we can stop striving and rest in his love. When Danielle started a coaching business and began comparing herself to others, Phil reminded her that God, not other people, defines her success. Nehemiah, mocked while rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall, did not set out to prove his critics wrong; he prayed. With God’s approval, we need no one else’s. Danielle closes in prayer, challenging everyone to take one baby step toward living for an audience of one.
