I am a huge people pleaser and always have been. Although being that way, I surprisingly am in no way a doormat and have never had any problems standing up for what I believe in. In doing this though, I have found myself tip-toeing around the way I come across to people because I am afraid of what people will think of me, and how I am perceived by everyone around me. I mean we all want to be liked by everyone, right?

At what point does this cross the line?

I believe that there is nothing wrong with wanting to love and be loved, in fact, that’s exactly the way that Jesus lived. One thing about Jesus, however, was that he did not live to the standards set before him by the world. He lived by the guidelines he knew that would please God… and God only.

Your life decisions should only be impacted by the Father himself. When we choose to live by the standards of everyone else in the world, we will never be happy. Everyone has their own opinions of different things, but God is a steadfast rock that is the same today as he was yesterday. Living to please our parents, and friends, or significant others, we will never have the fulfillment or peace that follows striving to follow the will of God.

I don’t know about you, but I seek after the approval of everyone close to me on almost every decision that I make in my life. Lots of times I feel refreshed after seeking counsel from the people after I love. Every now and then I don’t receive this replenished sense of peace after perusing their advice. In fact, sometimes I feel like no matter the choices I make I will be unsupported and that is not a good feeling.

I do believe that God told us to have fellowship one to another for a reason because he does want us to get opinions from others to help guide us. However, he was not putting them in our life to make our decisions for us. It was after a few times I kept coming up a loss after going for guidance that I had an epiphany. It’s not them that I should be trying to please. If I focused on putting my problems in God’s hands, and going with the way HE was swaying me to go, I do not need to hear from anyone else. I’ve already found my answers.