Who are you trying to please today? Who are you trying to get your approval from?
...And it's not what we are supposed to do...
We try to please people for approval. Some of us need it worse than others.
I have done that my whole life.
It all goes back to "where does our value come from?" and "if you don't like me, then I am not valuable".
So we jump through imaginary hoops trying to get people to like us, trying to win their approval and when we do all of that, we feel good about ourselves temporarily.
God tells us not to seek approval from people but from Him.
What a relief!
We do not need to be intimidated by people. We need to realize that saying no is okay...especially when the reason we were going to say "yes" was for approval and not because we felt motivated or convicted or passionate about doing it.
Proverbs says trying to please people is a trap, yet it says trusting God is SAFE.
This is so freeing. It lets us off the hook to stop trying to please people and instead, has us looking to God for our approval.
God won't ever condemn us, He won't ever turn away from us. He accepts us as we are. Isn't that comforting to know?
I personally want to make pleasing my God highest goal; to stop trying to please everyone around me. It makes life a whole lot easier.....and it also doesn't give other people so much power over us.
This doesn't mean we can't do nice things for others.
KL
