The Grips of Affirmation

When my husband and I went through premarital counseling we were advised to take the Five Love Languages Test by Gary Chapman. A quick google definition for the purpose of this test says, “to help individuals know and understand the ways they give and receive love”. So, from this test I learned that my top love language was Words of Affirmation. Words of Affirmation is basically showing love and appreciation through your words, which for most of my adult life, tracked. Now here recently, as the title of this blog post - affirmation has me in grip, and so in my own personal conviction I needed to repent and for the Lord to completely free me from it because I literally tied it to my identity. 

The grips of affirmation can lead you to seeking out love and appreciation from those around you, whether it’s your spouse, your children, your family, your parents, your friends, people in the church, and even your co-workers. But what happens when it becomes an idol? What happens when it becomes a thing that you can’t seemingly function without? What happens when you place the words of people over what the Lord says about you? This is where I have had my battle with it. I started looking for affirmation, looking for praise, even encouragement in some instances through people. And when I didn’t get it, I was discouraged, I was sad, left feeling unworthy and not valued. I placed my worth and value in the mouths of people instead of going straight to the source, the Creator, my Heavenly Father who could affirm me and my identity better than any physical person on this earth ever could. I placed the burden of lifting my lack of confidence onto other people, instead of the one who formed me in my mother’s womb. Who took the time to detail the intricacies about my whole being. 

Perhaps there is a healthy way to have a love language and not allow it to become perverted, to not allow it to become a tool of manipulation, and how you move through life. But for me, I allowed those very things to happen. Even as it relates to my identity in Christ, to my place in the Kingdom of God, and what I’m supposed to be doing. I became hungry for affirmation from my husband, from my friends, and even from people in the church. Hungry for a prophetic word or something that would catapult me into my full identity and purpose for my life. A word that would remind me of who am I without having to do the grunt work and partnering with God on it. And yes, I have definitely received a word from the Lord, by way of people, but it has not always come from a pure and correctly postured place. That is, only wanting to go to the altar for a word spoken over my identity, only wanting to be in spaces and places where someone would potentially call me out and speak to who GOD ALREADY SAYS I AM.

I believe that the root of the grips of affirmation came from my parents, particularly my father. Hearing or not hearing an “I’m proud of you”, “You’re an amazing daughter”, “You’re an amazing mother”, etc., So not hearing that from him took a toil on me, even into adulthood that I didn’t even fully realize until recently. I’m not saying that he wasn’t emotionally or physically present, because he was. But I’ve noticed as an adult moments where affirmation was lacking from him and how that really has affected me. It turned into an unhealthy view of myself, like am I not worthy of praise or appreciation from my own biological father? Which then turned into well if my own biological and earthly father won’t affirm me, what makes me think that God - my heavenly Father will? And that blowed over to not receiving it from people all together. What I did right there was place God in the same box as my dad and people all together, and that wasn’t fair. 

I do believe that everyone deserves some type of affirmation, don’t get me wrong! However, when you make that the pinnacle of how you live your life, how you show up for people, places and spaces it hinges on selfish motives and intentions. It leaves you with never being satisfied with people, it leaves you feeling unseen, discouraged and not valued - and that leads to feeling rejected and neglected. The only way to remedy this is to secure our identity in Jesus, to secure our identity in His word and what His word says about us.

You want to know something funny in the same breath of seeking out affirmation? Whenever I receive some type of appreciation or affirmation about who I am, I actually have a hard time receiving it - whether I’m secretly hoping for it or not. It’s almost like I’m rejecting it in a sense, because I don’t believe that I’m worthy of receiving it, or because I’m in such a desperate need of it, I question if my longing is coming from an impure place. Like I can literally hear the words that are being spoken to me and over me, but it’s almost like a barrier that prevents me from completely taking it in, that prevents me from ingesting the words. I’ve tied words of affirmation to identity so much that it’s become entangled in who I believe God created and called me to be. But here I say no more, my identity and affirmation doesn’t come from man. Can they add a few words here and there, yes. Can the Lord use people to encourage and affirm you - absolutely yes. I believe that is how He speaks to us sometimes, but you must know that we shouldn’t even be taking the affirmation out of its original design, but as humans we’re flawed and we crave the immediate things. I’ll continue to do a heart check, asking what are my motives and reasonings for seeking out affirmation if I am. And in continuing to do that, I have literally felt the Holy Spirit press on me that the reasoning is or isn’t coming from a pure place. I can literally feel Him reeling me back in and I am so grateful for it. 

I pray that we will become rooted in our identity in Christ and that when we are in desperate need of affirmation, that we look to Him first, we look to His word, and bring our concerns to Him first. Yes, people know part of the story by way of the Holy Spirit, even based on what people know and observe about you - but only the author and finisher of our faith TRULY knows who we are and can give us the true affirmation we need. Even sometimes, when you aren’t actively seeking it out and just resting in Him, you’ll receive it too. 

Romans 8:14-16 (NLT) says, “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”

Psalm 139:13-18 (TPT) says, “You saw who you created me to be before I became me! Before I’d ever seen the light of day, the number of days you planned for me were already recorded in your book. Every single moment you are thinking of me! How precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish me constantly in your every thought! O God, your desires toward me are more than the grains of sand on every shore! When I awake each morning, you’re still with me.”