Longing to feel okay

Don't you hate that feeling?
The one where you feel like crap.
The one where you wonder why anyone would like you.
The one where you seem like such a screw up.
The one where it seems like you're not good enough for anyone.

I hate it too.
But I used to feel it a lot more often.  In fact, these days it's pretty rare for me.

Check out the following quote I heard on a podcast recently:

The moment your well-being is hinged to another person's response, you will manipulate them.

To manipulate is to try and make someone else do something by pressuring or tricking them.  Most of us wouldn't manipulate to get money, but we do when we need to feel okay.

We pressure, we threaten, we cry, we yell, we give the silent treatment, we ignore-whatever it takes to get someone's attention that we really crave.  And we crave it because we cannot feel good about ourselves without it.

When God gave the commandment: "You shall not have any other gods before me" he was not being self-absorbed.  He was being smart...for our sake.

You see, when we stake our well-being in anybody we are setting that person up as a god, as our source of meaning.  Naturally, they can never completely come through when we need it, so we then get mad and manipulate them to get what we want from them.  In the process, in the long term, we slowly deteriorate the relationship.

But when, as David said, "My soul finds rest in God alone" (Psalm 62), then we can live without manipulation, because as we learn to rest our souls in God, we are free to enjoy people without needing them to make us happy.