People Pleasing as a Christian: When Yes Is Really Fear

She catches you in the Walmart parking lot, the ice cream already softening in your cart. "I hate to ask, but could you do me a favor and help me out on Thursday evening? Totally fine if not."

Thursday was your one open evening this week. Before she finishes the sentence, you hear yourself say, "Oh, sure! I'd be glad to."

You weren't glad. You were scared not to.

That's the part of people pleasing as a Christian we rarely admit: a lot of our yeses aren't kindness. They're fear. Fear of looking selfish, or of being talked about on the drive home. Fear that once you stop being useful, you'll stop being wanted.

We've dressed that fear in church clothes and called it serving. Most of us have done it so long we can't tell the two apart anymore.

I know this one from the inside. Part of me truly wants to make other people happy. Another part of me doesn't want anyone to be disappointed in me, and I hate to admit it, but I think that second part has been given more power. For years I overstretched. I said yes when I knew it would make me miserable, and I put myself in impossible situations I then had to maneuver my way through.

People pleasing as a Christian: is it a sin?

Is it? Yes, powerful question that makes us uncomfortable. If it's a sin, we can repent and try harder. If it isn't, we can stop feeling bad about it.

Here's my honest answer. Kindness isn't a sin. Saying yes isn't a sin. But the Bible names the fear underneath a lot of our yeses, and it doesn't call it a virtue:

"The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe." (Proverbs 29:25, KJV)

A snare is a trap. It doesn't announce itself. It closes a little at a time. Every fearful yes pulls it tighter, because now one more person expects it, and you have one more reason you can't let them down.

Look at what the verse sets on the other side of the snare: trust in the LORD, and being safe. Being liked was never what kept you safe. So the better question isn't "Am I sinning when I say yes?" Ask this one instead: "Who am I trusting to keep me safe when I say it?"

Why the yes comes out before you can stop it

If you've wondered why you can't just say no, it's usually because the yes was never really a decision. It's a reflex, learned early and rewarded often.

It took a good friend and life coach, Rich Halcombe, Leader Increase, LLC to help me see what was underneath mine. My need to please people was an identity issue. I wasn't secure in myself, and more importantly, I wasn't secure in my identity in Christ. It never pushed me to do anything wrong or unethical. It was everyday favors, one after another, that took me past my limit.

Maybe you grew up where keeping everyone happy kept the peace. Maybe you learned that the helpful girl got the praise and the tired girl got the sigh. Somewhere along the way, being needed started to feel like being safe.

When women answered my anonymous survey this fall about their hardest seasons, about a third named some version of the same thing: doing it all, the obligations, keeping everyone happy. None of them used the word fear. But nobody wears herself out keeping everyone happy unless something in her believes it's dangerous not to.

Here's the cost nobody writes on the sign-up sheet. Fearful yeses turn into quiet resentment. Psychologist Loren Soeiro put the difference plainly this spring: "Being generous with other people, without resentment or conflict, is qualitatively different from people-pleasing due to worry."

You already know that difference in your body. One kind of yes leaves you warm. The other has you clenching your jaw the whole drive over.

What we hear at church, and what it leaves out

Most of us learned early that a good Christian woman says yes. Serve one another. Deny yourself. Be the hands and feet. Every bit of that is in Scripture, and I would never tell you to stop serving.

But we rarely hear the other half. Mark's Gospel tells about a morning when the disciples found Jesus praying alone and told Him everyone was looking for Him. He didn't hurry back to meet the crowd. He said it was time to go on to the next towns. Luke says that while great crowds were gathering to hear Him, He withdrew into the wilderness and prayed. Jesus let people be disappointed in Him, and He was never once afraid of them.

When all we hear is "serve more," a frightened woman hears that her fear has a job. She gets praised for the very thing that's wearing her down, so she does more of it. Serving out of fear and serving out of love can look exactly alike from the pew. God can tell them apart, and so can your heart, if you're honest with it.

Bringing the real yes to God

So don't start by practicing no. Start by telling God the truth about your yes.

The next time someone asks, wait before you answer. Not forever, just until tomorrow morning if you can. "Let me check and get back to you" is an honest sentence, and it's enough.

Then pray the plain version before you reply: "Lord, I'm afraid she'll think less of me if I say no. I'm afraid of being left out. I'd rather trust You with that than keep managing her opinion of me."

Then ask yourself one question: If I weren't afraid, what would I say?

Sometimes the answer will still be yes, and that yes will be a real gift. Sometimes it'll be no, and you'll say it without three sentences of apology trailing behind it. Either way, you'll be answering from trust instead of from inside the snare. If you'd like a quiet daily place to practice that kind of honest prayer, the free Make Room for Joy guide takes about ten minutes a day for seven days.

I'd like to tell you that at 56 I'm over all of this. The truth is I struggle with it daily. But I am learning to set boundaries, and each week I make myself review how I treated myself the week before.

It won't feel natural the first few times. Your stomach will still tighten. The fear may keep showing up for a while. You're learning to stop letting it answer for you.

Part of our free Make Room for You evening on Thursday, November 12, in Louisa, is laying down one thing you were never meant to carry. If a fearful yes is yours, bring it with you.