The Freedom I Found in Christ

For a long time, I didn’t realize how much of my life was shaped by the desire to be accepted. I wanted to be liked, included, and to know that I mattered. When I experienced rejection, it touched something much deeper than the circumstances of that moment. It made me question myself. What is wrong with me? Why wasn’t I enough? Why wasn’t I chosen? I wish I could say those questions never affected the way I lived, but they did. Envy, comparison, and doubt slowly crept in, and without realizing it, I began looking to others for something only Christ could give me.

What I didn’t recognize was how deeply this need for approval had followed me even into ministry. I love teaching God’s Word, and I deeply love the people God has allowed me to walk alongside. I wanted to see them grow, know Christ more deeply, and understand His Word. Those desires were genuine, but somewhere along the way, a good desire became a burden God never asked me to carry. I kept pouring out even when there was very little left in me to pour. I prepared Bible studies, taught, encouraged, and tried to help those I loved grow in their relationship with Christ. From the outside, I was doing good things – godly things. But inside, I was becoming spiritually dry. The painful truth was that while I was trying so hard to help others grow in their relationship with God, I was neglecting my own.

I was spending so much time doing things for God that I had stopped simply being with God, and yet I kept going. People were counting on me. I didn’t want to disappoint them, and somehow stepping back felt selfish. It felt like I was failing them. What I couldn’t see was that my desire to help had quietly become tangled with my need to please. I had begun feeling responsible for something that had never been mine to control – the spiritual growth of other people.

God had to rescue me from that. He began showing me that I was never meant to sacrifice intimacy with Him so someone else could grow in intimacy with Him. I can teach Scripture, encourage, pray, love people, and faithfully point them toward Christ, but I cannot change a heart. I cannot produce spiritual growth in another person. That work belongs to God. As He began lifting that burden from my heart, the words of Galatians 5:1 became more personal: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” I was beginning to understand that freedom wasn’t only freedom from my past or my sin. Christ was also freeing me from burdens I had placed upon myself.

He reminded me that before I am a Bible teacher, a leader, a writer, or someone who pours into others, I am His daughter. My relationship with Him cannot simply become the source material for what I give everyone else. I need Him for me. I need time in His Word when I am not preparing to teach it. I need prayer that isn’t always about helping someone else. I need quiet moments with Him that don’t have an agenda, a lesson, or something to produce at the end. I need to simply sit at His feet.

Perhaps that has been one of the sweetest parts of the freedom He has been teaching me. I don’t have to carry everyone. I don’t have to fix everyone. I don’t have to measure my faithfulness by someone else’s growth. I can love people deeply while trusting God with the parts of their story that belong to Him. I am also learning to receive His love instead of continually trying to earn the acceptance of others. God knows all of me—my wounds, weaknesses, fears, failures, insecurities, and the places I am still learning to surrender—and He loves me still. I don’t have to perform for that love or prove my usefulness to Him.

I am still learning what it means to live this way. I still love teaching God’s Word, and I still want to see people grow. But now I want my service to come from the overflow of time spent with Jesus, not at the expense of it. The burden is no longer mine to carry. I can love people, serve them, encourage them, and point them to Jesus, and then trust Him with the rest. I am learning that laying down that weight isn’t giving up on the people I love – it is trusting God with them.

And in laying down what was never mine to carry, I have found room again to simply sit with Jesus, receive His love, and remember that before I ever do anything for Him, I belong to Him.

That is where I am finding freedom.

Where in your life are you still looking to others for the acceptance and approval that can only be found in Christ? What burden are you carrying today that God may never have asked you to carry? What would freedom look like in your life if you truly trusted God with the people you love and allowed your service to flow from your relationship with Christ rather than at the expense of it? Please share in the comments.