these days, it seems everyone is preoccupied with pleasing others.
pleasing parents. pleasing professors. pleasing bosses. pleasing friends.
yes, those are all people that we should respect in life, and as for parents and friends, we should love them too.
however, have you ever thought that living to please others might be stopping you from reaching the potential and the destiny that God has planned for you? trying to conform to a standard may prevent you from effectively loving and living.
yes, that's right, living to please others may actually prevent you from loving everyone as God intended and as they deserve to be loved as children of God. i've been struggling lately with acceptance. i would hold on to what is different and not so easy to love about certain people and i would push myself away because "oh, i can't like them, they aren't fitting into my standard" and i recently realized that i was living to please others. God created everyone with the same love that he created you and me. God makes no mistakes.
so wait, if God makes no mistakes....then why are some people soo difficult to love and get along with?
well...i personally believe that God places people like that in our lives so that we may learn to love, not only those that are easy to love, but those that are the most difficult to accept.
These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
1 Peter 1:7
God places situations in our life so that we may be made better and more worthy of his kingdom.
take one of the most beautiful creations on earth. a simple pearl. well, a pearl is nothing more than an irritation. the mollusk has an intruder. a very unwelcome intruder. be it a piece of sand or something else, this intruder is an irritation. rather than expelling this irritation, the mollusk creates beautiful layers around it. making it more welcome in its dwelling. this irritation is what becomes the pearl.
what will you do with the irritations that God places in your life? will you refuse them...or make them more beautiful? let God make a pearl out of your life. be a servant of Christ in love and in life. live for Him and not for others.
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
