Thanks for your article Nicole.

I think this touches on a real nerve for many, especially those of us who are in public gospel ministry roles where such motivations can be exposed.

As I see it, it has much to do with being loved by those who are significant in our life. Do we need to earn their love towards us? Is their loved conditioned on winning their approval by achieving the standards they set for us?

With God, we know that his love towards us who are in Christ is unconditional (while we were yet his enemies God loved us). God’s love is not something that can be earned by achieving his righteous requirements.

Consequently, knowing God’s love, knowing that he has justified us sinners, we seek to please him NOT in order to earn his love but out of thanksgiving for his gracious love toward us. By the Spirit, we want to please him, not out of fear of disapproval, but with deep gratitude in our hearts.

Likewise, I believe, with the love of our parents - if it is unconditional love, we know that we are loved even if we live in a way that they disapprove of. If, on the other hand, it is love conditioned on achieving their requirements for us, then we will not have the security that comes from knowing that we have their love despite the ways in which we will inevitably disappoint them. Without such security, we will be forever seeking to earn their love by earning their approval. This will shape the way we relate in all of our relationships - ‘people will love me if I earn their approval’. 

As a parent, I want my children to know that I will love them despite their performance. There are (and will be many more) times when they do things that don’t earn my approval, yet, with God’s help, I will still love them, knowing that the Lord loves me despite my constant failing of him.

I never want my children to think that I will love them only if they perform at school, behave at church, achieve on the sporting field, and so on.

I pray that such love will compel them to live in a way I approve of, not motivated by fear of not being loved, but out of trust and reciprical love.

Most of all, it will be their Heavenly Father’s perfect love for them that will compel them to live in a way worthy of the Lord. And, if by God’s grace they are compelled by his love to live to please him, then they will have my full approval as well as my love.

P.S. For the record - I am greatful to God for the unconditional love my parents showed me. I certainly tested their love, bringing them major disappointment in periods of my life.

Thanks everyone for the comments! 

I think you’re right about the importance of us as parents giving our children secure and dependable love (and raising our children within a home where they see secure and dependable love between their parents, too).  Our kids need to know that there are things we (strongly) approve and disapprove of, but that our love for them doesn’t fluctuate from day to day, varying with our approval and disapproval of their actions. 

And then, at a still deeper level, we need to model for our kids a love for God and a zeal for his glory and a confidence in his saving love for us. (As a side issue: I suspect that one of the worst dangers we can fall into as parents is the danger of letting our parenting be captive to our desire to be approved of and admired by others, rather than raising our kids for God’s glory…)

I think it’s right for kids to take pleasure in their parents’ approval and to feel pain at their parents’ disapproval - the aim is not to be so anaemic as parents that our kids never experience either.  Rather, our aim should be teach our kids about (and model for them) the fear of God and the trust in his love that overcomes the danger that they will be enslaved by or addicted to our approval. (I’m very thankful for how my parents taught and modelled that for me.)

Now Nicole,

I’m afraid you’ve earned my disapproval for this post—because I have a half-written post on a very similar theme sitting in my file, and I just haven’t managed to polish it off. And now you’ve beaten me to the punch, and gained all the nice appreciative comments from people that I was hoping to gain!

[Seriously, thanks for this. Great stuff. And rather than comment further here, I’ll get my one finished on the ‘fear of man’ and continue the conversation that way.]

TP

I think we have another manifestation of big-S Sin here: the desire to earn approval (not receive it) and thus to appear better than we are. 
I’ve noticed there is a ‘right’ way to be a Christian woman, for example—chick-flicks and needlecraft! Blergh! 
There seems to me too be a real danger of certain matters burdening some of us with a yoke of slavery.  Reading Galatians is certainly part of the answer, but this is an issue I’ve been concerned about for a while.  Sin is so deceitful and so entrenched, isn’t it?

Thanks Nick and Ellen.

Nick, I completely agree about <i>You Can Change</i>.  I’m reading it at the moment and I suspect it was one of the things that made me think about this issue.  It’s a great book.

And thanks Ellen for the reminder of how pervasive this issue can be for us and how serious it is as a “big S” Sin.  A lot of the time these codes are (at least partly) in the eye of the beholder aren’t they.  We see a group of people with a particular “style” and because we want their acceptance and approval, we mimic the style.

Of course, cultural and subcultural mores (eg. ways of expressing our created masculinity and femininity) should never be irrelevancies, but the big idea has to be loving others and glorifying God, rather than just fitting in.