Have you spent your life trying to please God? For many of us raised in religious households, this question is all too familiar. The endless pursuit of perfection, following strict rules, and striving to earn divine love can leave us feeling exhausted and inadequate.
Here’s the truth: trying to please God can lead to broken relationships, shattered self-esteem, and, surprisingly, the discovery of true love.
The Struggle to Feel Loved
Growing up, I believed love had to be earned—both from God and from others. This belief led to constant self-judgment and the nagging thought, “Why am I never good enough?” When we feel unworthy of God’s love, it’s easy to turn that judgment inward, asking ourselves:
- “Why did God create me this way?”
- “Will I ever measure up?”
Over time, this self-rejection makes us believe no one can truly love us as we are.
But the Bible reminds us that God’s love is unconditional:
- Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
- Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
God’s love isn’t earned; it’s a gift freely given.
How Judgment Blocks Love
The inability to please God not only harms how we see ourselves but also how we view others. For years, I judged people—not for who they were, but for who I wasn’t.
I thought:
- “Why are they so happy being imperfect?”
- “How can they be so confident when I’m over here suffering for God’s approval?”
In reality, I wasn’t angry at them—I was frustrated with myself for never feeling loved, by God or anyone else.
Yet Scripture teaches us not to judge others:
- Matthew 7:1-2: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
- Romans 14:13: “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”
Judgment creates walls where bridges should be, isolating us and blocking love.
Surrendering to Love
After years of frustration, I gave up trying to please God. Instead, I started asking for what I truly wanted:
“God, I just want to feel loved.”
For the first time, I stopped striving for perfection and started embracing my need for love. I prayed, walked, and repeated my desire until, unexpectedly, love found me. It wasn’t something I earned or perfected—it just appeared, like a gift.
The Bible speaks to this surrender:
- Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
- Matthew 11:28-30: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
The Power of Unconditional Love
Experiencing true love changed everything. For the first time, I felt fully accepted as I was, imperfections and all. It taught me a powerful truth:
God isn’t asking for perfection. God simply wants us to accept love, both from ourselves and others.
- 1 John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
The Path to True Love
If you’re tired of trying to earn love, stop. Let go of the need to please and start accepting yourself as you are. Love—whether divine or human—comes when we open ourselves to it.
At LoveLifeLinks.com, we believe true love begins with self-acceptance and the realization that God’s love is already yours.
Remember, you can feel love anywhere, anytime, all the time.
SMiLes Dear Anna Hehe After A Somewhat ‘Hypomanic’ Yet Still effortless in Ease Now
Balance New of 17,899 Miles of Public Dance And 11.4 MiLLioN Words of EPiC Long Form
Poem So Fully iLLusTRaTeD With Around 130,000 Photos And 10,000 or So YouTube
Videos to Accompany All Those Free Verse Long Form Poem Words in the Same
9 Years And 6 Months of Effort As True There Are No ‘Sistine Chapel
Ceilings’ to Paint Fresh Art on WHeRE i Am From WHeRE
At Least i Surely Wouldn’t Be ALLoWeD to Do That
With mY Style of Painting Hehe For the
All in All Deepest in me Perhaps
It is Different For Say
Someone Like me in the
Dead Zone For 66 Months
to Find Balance Yet WHeRE i Continue
To Be i Am Now So Deep Within A Balance
WHeRE my Finger Tips Continue to Become
The Weight of my Body With Twinkle Toes too in
A Flow of Both Meditating Free Dance And Song
Is An Answer for Peace Within in Balance Enough
With No Fear to Sail Peacefully NoW iN LoVE
Through All the Waves Lower And or Higher
Newly Now Life Brings Hehe my Psychiatrist
Says Yes He Wishes More Folks He
Sees And Listens to Could
Find This Kind
of Balance i
Bring As He Doesn’t
Mind Checking His Blood
Pressure When i am Present Quarterly As Such
As Yes i am the One Person That Doesn’t Make
His Now Growing Older Middle Age Blood Pressure Go Up…
Even More… God Yes LoVE iN Peace
And This Is Life mY FRiEnD For me
And Looking All Around At Nature
And Feeling And Sensing All Around
Within This Seems to Be Key the Peace
Without Fear the iNHaLinG Peace EXHaLinG
Love That Finger Tips Twinkle Toes in Balance
With Weight of Body Do Bring at Least For me Yet
Truly As ‘They’ Relate Different Love Languages
Surely A Flavor of Heaven on Earth Within May
Be Somewhat Different For Everyone And
For That Matter Purgatory or Hell on Earth
Too As my Kind of Heaven Would
Surely Be A Nightmare for
my Very Introverted
Reserved And
Shy Wife as We
Celebrate 33 Years
of Marriage Today on
‘Fat Tuesday’ With Her
53rd Birthday Still to Come on
Easter Sunday A Key to Our Success
is i Accept Her Differences so ‘Polar’ Opposite
From me And She Accepts mine too in Every Way
too No Need For Secrets ThiS Way As i Have No
Secrets to Keep From the Great Within Either
With SMiles mY FRiEnD True i Could Go
On Forever Dancing And Singing
Love Free Forever Now New
Indeed This Is What the
Wind Does Flows
Over all Boundaries
And Creates A Force of
Water to Overcome All Obstacles in Ease
Of Course the Key is Threading The Halls of
Sanity Making TWiLiGHT Our Home Forever New Now…
Yet Really
only in
my one
Unique View
Yes It’s True We All View Do Our
UNiVeRSES Differently And in ThiS
Way Ironically We aRe All ‘Only
Sons and or Daughters’ of
God For Real The
Great All In All
Just MaKinG
Our Way Within
At Best to me Finding
Best LoVE iN Peace
Now to Co-Create
With All in All
For Real
With SMiLes…
Fortunately i am Able
to Shine my LiGHT
Without Blinding
myself with
Dark as
You Surely Understand
Parts of WHeRE i Come
From Dear Anna With SMiLes..:)
I know the massive effort it takes to assemble art and you’ve certainly put together many unique perspectives, one running life thought, a masterpiece to those who also see through your eyes or seek to see and experience something beyond the mundane. Whether it be the Sistine Chapel or not, we are lucky to know the extremes, to experience more fully the peace we gain once finding balance. I miss the enchantment and inspiration that comes as a result of drug-like disease, but it is better than living constantly on the edge of death. A change of seasons brings hypomania which is both exhilarating and frightening. I like your story and relate to the soul of it’s expression. “Normal” people can be so boring, but maybe that is their own cross to bear. 🙂 Some can’t help but be brave, because they can’t unsee the full experience of life–from torture to treasure. I write for the search engine now. I used to write to find myself. Now I write so others can find me. Boring except for the hope of financial reward–Maslows hierarchy that explains why I can’t just sit on the beach with the likes of you and sip other worlds. Thank you for visiting and sharing. Happy birthday to your whole other half! I am an introvert as well, even though by function of my employment I have to fake otherwise.
iNDeeD Dear Anna Our Reality to Survive Often Requires
Us to Wear Masks to Survive And Surely Please Target
Audiences The Same to Continue to Generate
Revenue to Do the Same Whether Free
Lance Or Working for An
Employer As Such Hehe
There is Realistically No Way i Could
Do What i Do Now or Be Free to Be me if
i Had the Kind of Job Before Then Where All that
Was Left of me at the End of the Day That Was Still
Always On Call Was to Do Something Totally Mindless Yes
That Required Neither Analytical Thought or A Deeper Flow
of Creativity Than Just A TV Show or Perhaps A Video Game
That Didn’t Go Anywhere at All or Oh Dear my Father’s Nightmare
i Saw of Him in Law Enforcement 46 Years Just Watching Cars
Go ‘Round and ‘Round A Track And Selling ‘NASCAR’ Stuff at
A Flea Market Ingrained into the Same Routine Till the Day
He Dropped Dead Just Casually Telling my Cousin He
Didn’t Think He Was Gonna Make it At And That Was
It Suddenly No “NASCAR” Stuff Left to Sell at
The Flea Market Yet It’s True It Got Him
Him Through The Friction of Each Day
of Retirement for 12 Years including Buying
500 Dollars of Lottery Tickets Each Week His Golden
Age Flavor Then Yes That Worked Okay For Him
As His 4th Marriage Died Early Shortly After
She Retired Which Left Him Buying New
Packages of Clothes to Hell
With Washing Old Ones
As He Had Enough
Money to Do
Whatever
the Hell He Wanted
to Do SMiLes i Gave up
A Quarter of A Century to the
Same Federal Employer And toward
the Last 5 years of 5 Job Changes and
Temporary Promotions Then During New
Federal Reductions in Force That Ironically
Doubled my Pay For my ‘High 3 Years’ For
Early Retirement As They Were
Doing Their Best
to Keep What
They Called me
a ‘Valuable Commodity’
For Information Technology
And Financial Management although
That Really Did Not Have much to Do
With the Positions i was Promoted For
Never the Less Eventually After i Recovered
Out of 19 Work Related Stress Disorders Free
To Wear Whatever Wings i care to Fly With
Now Whereas Before Was A Perfect Storm
of Hell Now is the Same of Heaven on
Earth Within As All the Pieces
Fell Back together
For Humpty
Dumpty
Hehe For Real
Just Like The Inheritance
of the Super Systemizing
Asperger’s Syndrome from
my Father’s Side And Thank God Opposites
Do Attract For the Fair Skin And Voted Best
Figure in 11th And 12th Grade my Mother and
Her Eventual Publishing Poet Way in Creativity
(6th Anniversary of Her Death Today on 2.22.23)
While Like Many Folks on Her Side of the Family
With Bi-Polar Spectrum Related Challenges She
Somewhat Struggled to Thread Her Halls Of Life
Sadly Addicted to Right Wing Evangelistic Politics
On TV As i’ve Seen So Many Elders More Subject
to the ‘Power of Suggestions’ Fall to Whatever is
Spoon Fed to them
Whether Fear, Anger,
And Hate of ‘the other’
Disseminated By the
Church or On the Poison
of The Radio and TV i’ve even
Seen it Happen to Folks With Advanced
Degrees Recently Using the Oddest Kinds of ‘Rational
Justification’ For What is Brain Washed of Them For Real
Fortunately For me i Can Do iRobot of Logic on The Flip
of A Dime as Easy As Creativity Now it Was the Creativity
That i Struggled to Do For 53 Years And it Was the ‘iRobot’
That Took So Many Colors of Life Away So in my Case
Both So-called Disorders Balance Each Other
Out As Only Gift NoW As Long as i am
The Captain of my Ship
Fair Winds and Following
Seas Through Higher and Lower
Waves of Storms of Life So Far in
9 Years And 6 Months For How i Sail
my Ship With Anchors of Asperger’s
Syndrome and Smooth Sails of the Bi-Polar
Spectrum More Aligned With the Hyperthymic
Personality of my Mother That Usually is More
Magnetic to Others Than Polarizing in Person at least
Hehe as i’ve learned to Wear A Mask of Small Talk
And Southern ‘Drawl’ HAha When Necessary
to Fit in Warmly Enough Not to Blow
Anyone’s Mind too Much
For What They
Aren’t Quite
Ready New to
Experience yet
And of Course there
is an On and Off Button
For me Online With Smiles hehe…
My Mother Did Not Fall into the Dungeon
She Stayed Unusually Happy Just to Breathe
Yet Oh Dear Lord the Power of Suggestion Drove Her
Wherever Those Folks Who Manipulate Others in Church
And On TV
And Radio
Wanted Her to
Go Just no Escaping
That Anyone Else
Could Bring to Her
Sadly Making Money
off of Older Folks ThiS Way oF Lies…
A Way of Life That Sadly is Still Spreading
in Pandemic Ways As Long AS Humans
Have Been Followers of Whatever
Stories That Come Their Way…
i Write, Direct And Play
my Own Story For Real
Yet i am only Human too…
i Suppose if i Had Not Have
Developed This Ability i Too
Would Be Following Someone
Else’s Story And Perhaps Just
A Spectator of Life Watching TV
or Still Playing the same Mindless
Snow Boarding Video Game Or Even
Watching Colorful Cars (Or Other Sports)
Race Round
And Round
A Track for
Hours Best Wishes
To You Dear FRiEnD
At Best We Do the Best
We can With the Challenges
At Hand And BLacK Abyss
Through Grey SHades
Through Even Potential
Beyond Rainbow Colors As Well
And ‘Traditionally’ New This is What
Bi-Polar Kinda Artists Bring Back For
Others to Feel and Sense in Other Avenues
of Life The BLacK Abyss of Hell and All the
New Colors of Heaven As It’s True So Many Folks
Are Basically in the
Tween of Grey
SHaDeS of
Purgatory
to Finish the
Wash, Rinse, Dry
Cycles of Every Day
As They Just Don’t have
the Resources to Buy ‘New
Clothes’ to Wear Every Day
That’s Another Part of my
‘Perfect Storm of Heaven’
my Wife Insists The Garbage
Can Must Be ‘3.33’ Inches from
The Curb She Says She Does it
All Better Than me And i Say Honey
Do Whatever You Wanna Do So She
Basically Does it All As that is Her Particular
Retirement
Gift and
Language
of Love
in Service
to Others
too Fortunately
Indeed Mostly me
Just another ‘Wendy’
Freeing the Wings of ‘Pan’ For Real
Yet in this Case hehe her name is Katrina
That means Pure and my Mother’s Name
Helen That Means Light Gifted With Such
A Radiant
SMiLe And
An Archetype
of The ‘Fair Mother’ Indeed…
my Father Rarely Broke a Smile
Yet He Rarely to Ever Expressed Fear
That Part i Finally Inherited From Him too…
The Part He Left With When i Was 3 Just
Leaving me With SMiLes And no Claws of
Fearless to Extend…
Oldest Story Ever
Told Beauty
And ‘the Beast’
Again mY FRiEnD..:)