Caring Enough To Confront By David AugsburgerSample

Day Five

Are You on Trial?

Scripture: 1 John 3:20

Few things are more painful than to be always on trial, constantly working for praise. Praise is a ruling in your favor. Enough praise might add up to an acquittal. But it is highly unlikely that there will ever be enough praise to convince you that you’re okay.

“To be praised is to be loved” is the secret message you unconsciously tell yourself. It was true, of course, when you were a child in the concrete thinking period before age seven; but no longer. To be praised more often is to be manipulated. To be praised is often to be used. To be praised is often to be outsmarted, outmaneuvered, out-sweet-talked. But when you live to be praised, it doesn’t matter. No price is too great for a little praise. “Can’t get enough of that praise!” 

But when you get it, it turns to vapor in your grasp. You work for praise and approval, live for commendations and compliments, even sacrifice just for recognition and public notice. And what do you have to show for it? Emptiness. Loneliness. And little of the love you wanted so much. 

Why? Because there is another side that seems to haunt you. Criticism. And to be criticized is to be rejected. To be criticized is to lose approval, respect, love, and everything you’re working toward. That’s not true either, of course. To be criticized is often to be truly appreciated. To be respected so much that the other person can share both positive and negative feelings about you. To be criticized by a real friend can be a form of love. 

But when you put yourself on trial, criticism is seen as rejection, and praise is viewed as acceptance. What a way to live! What a way to not live. To be constantly on trial is not living. It is existing as a shadow, a reflection of others’ approval or disapproval.

But that can end whenever you want it to. If you live for another’s praise or cringe rejected under another’s criticism, you are choosing to be on trial. You volunteer to be victim. You give others far too much power. 

Describe a time when you worked hard for another person’s approval. Was his or her reaction to you satisfying? In what ways did you place yourself in the position of being a victim in that circumstance?