Stop Playing “Do You Like Me?” Games

Do you like me?

Check yes or no.

 

In my school days, this brief, pen-and-paper-based questionnaire, served as a popular method to gauge one’s standing in the eyes of another. I was never brave enough to survey anyone so directly, but I did carry around the longing to be liked, particularly by someone I admired.

I’m now far removed from the school days of my youth, but if I’m honest, the longing to be liked is not far removed from me.

I think most of us carry this ache around to some extent. Maybe it is a guy you’re crushing on. Perhaps you live for the unyielding favor of your husband and children. Or it could be that you crave the attention of a certain friend group. Or just maybe your employer holds the affirmation you desire.

But the reality is, not everyone is going to like us and even when people do, the fleeting affirmation of others can never truly satisfy our soul.

It’s an exhausting game and God is opening my eyes to see that I’ve been asking people to answer a question that he has already made clear to me.

One thing I’m learning to appreciate about God is that I never have to question whether God wants a relationship with me or wonder how he feels about me.

God took extreme action to prove he wants a relationship with his people by sending his own Son from the glory of heaven to the horror of the cross to remedy the sin that kept us apart. God has pursued me like none other.

As for how God feels about me. Well, it’s the same way he feels about Jesus.

Look at what God said about Jesus at his baptism:

and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  Matthew 3:16b-17 (ESV)

Jesus was beloved, or dearly loved, by God the Father and God the Father was well pleased with his Son because he was obedient to the work required to bring salvation to sinners. He humbly took on flesh, traveled around this dusty earth proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, and endured the punishment for the entire world’s sin.

That obedience made it possible to expand the family of God through adoption.

When I said yes to Jesus as my Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit came to dwell within me, sealing my adoption as a daughter of God. As his daughter, with the Holy Spirit resting in me, God looks at me and says, “this is my beloved (i.e., greatly loved, dear to my heart) daughter, with whom I am well pleased.” 

I am beloved in the same way Jesus is beloved by the Father! In God’s family, I get credit for the perfection and righteousness of Jesus because all my failures and sins were paid for at the cross. God is forever pleased with me because he is forever pleased with Jesus and nothing I do or fail to do can ever change that.

When I view myself as God’s beloved daughter, with whom he is well pleased, the verdicts of others lose their power to control how I define myself.

I am liked AND loved by the highest authority, God himself, Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Daughter of God, this is true for you too. The whole Bible is God’s note to us with the box checked “Yes!”

Believe this with me: We are God’s beloved daughters, with whom he is well pleased.

Let’s stop playing “do you like me?” games and reorient our hearts toward the love of our Father so we can boldly live as the wonderfully and uniquely made women he designed us to be, confident that our acceptance is secure.