Are you tired of wondering how to please God?

pleasing god

Some of us have a strong need to please. Particularly, many who grow up in a religious household or fundamental church spend a lifetime trying to figure how to please God.  Sometimes our obsession with pleasing God also becomes a dysfunctional desire to always please others. But we’ll expand on “Being a people pleaser” in another article. For now, let’s explore how seeking to please God can lead to damaged relationships, broken hearts, or perhaps–true love!

When you’re in an environment that constantly emphasizes being “right” with God, it can get depressing to realize how impossible it is to follow God’s strict rules and regulations. 

Can you relate?

What crazy person came up with the bizarre idea that it’s even remotely possible to please God? I can’t please my husband, my children, my parents–much less the “ruler of heaven and earth.”

This is not working, I’m giving up on God’s love

Jarringly, we wake up and finally realize our efforts are in vain. It becomes clear that God’s supernatural power isn’t conveniently possessing us to be robotically good. Divine power hasn’t enlightened us to become perfect followers of Christ or Muhammed or Buddha.

As a result, this is the point at which many completely reject a higher power or ‘perfect being’ altogether. However, some might actually choose to double down and reinvent their God or spiritual leader.

what can we do to please God
Photo by Arina Krasnikova

Which road do you choose?

On this site, we have a lot to say about the human need to feel loved. Let us consider that maybe our desire to figure out how to please God is really just a reflection of our longing to feel loved.

Through the lens of my own innate desire to be loved, I’ve recently contemplated the impact my quest to please God has had on my love life. In short, despite the rocky road, my question of ‘how to please God’ finally led me to answers about true love.

How my quest to please God shaped my relationship to self and others

I constantly judged myself, and felt unloved in the process

Our childhood innocence is lost when we’re first brainwashed into believing we can and must earn love–in our relationship to God and in our relationship to self and others.

Unfortunately, our inability to please God, inevitably leads us to harshly judge the world around us.

When we believe God is not pleased with us, it’s so easy to start picking ourselves apart.

We ask ourselves questions like, “Why am I never good enough? Why did God create me this way? Will I ever measure up?” These ponderings completely shut us off to true love. We start to believe that if we don’t measure up, no one will ever love us.

Fact is though, love stories have nothing to do with how to please a potential partner, and everything to do with finally being accepted just as we are. But first, we have to accept ourselves as we are.

When we can’t please God, we aren’t pleased with ourselves. This results in judging ourselves and others, thereby closing the door to love.

how to please God

Judging others is the ugly stepchild of inferiority

Unfortunately, it took me a long time to connect the dots on how my self-rejection led me to judge others. Judging isn’t always easy to identify. I didn’t judge others based on who they were. I judged them based on who I was not.

For example, my thinking went something like this:

  • If I’m not enough, why are they so happy being imperfect?
  • Why am I over here working so hard to be loved, while love just seems to fall into their lap?
  • How can they be so confident that God won’t strike them dead for their indifference?
  • If they are so oblivious to pleasing God, why am I over here suffering for Jesus?

I wasn’t really mad at them. I was angry with myself for never solving the equation of how to please God.

It hurt me that I’d never felt loved, by God or them.

Judging others is counterintuitive to love

These ideas may seem foreign to those who did not grew up with a strict religious background. But please believe me when I say that judging others is a reflection of how we judge ourselves. Negative judgments are always counterintuitive to love. Despite my best intentions, seeking to please others with the hope of earning love was futile.

Finally, I began to see the pattern, but had fallen hopeless to figuring it out all on my own.

The experience of true love obliterates our need to please

finding true love by pleasing God
Photo by Ba Tik

Fortunately, after many painful setbacks, I finally threw up my hands in surrender to never pleasing God. I simply started praying for what I’d wanted all along.

“God, I just want to feel loved.”

I remember the day I confessed my need for love out loud to my higher power. I was on the treadmill, and it felt weird to hear those words tumble out of my mouth. It was like, “God, take it or leave it. I don’t care about earning your love anymore. I just want love.”

When I took my nightly walks after that, I kept repeating my raw desire for love. But of course, I’m human. My preference was for the human embodiment of love (this gets tricky and is another story for another time).

And I kid you not, it seemed like no time had passed before love mysteriously fell into my lap, just like it seemed to have happened for everyone else. Perhaps I’d just not seen their private struggle of inadequacy. It’s likely they too had wrestled the demons of feeling like they’d never be enough, until one day they just gave up on trying.

Conclusion

Finally, I opened the door to true love by accepting myself as I was. And once I experienced that unconditional love, my life was never the same again. Someone else finally loved me for me. I could have “given my body to be burned,” but God only cared about love. I’d finally learned how to please God and, in the process, true love found me.

Read more articles on spiritual love!


LoveLifeLinks.com believes you’ll finally please God by surrendering to true love.

Remember, you can feel love anywhere, anytime, all the time.

3 thoughts on “How to please God | And also find true love”
  1. 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..:)

    1. 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.

      1. 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..:)

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