Who do you live for, God or other people?

It’s a question one should ask every day, and usually throughout the day.

Relatives? Co-workers? Friends?

Or Christ?

It’s certainly important and Godly to get along—to love at every turn, serving one another—but that doesn’t mean bending the way we want others to view us; it doesn’t mean contorting our true selves to please humans.

This leads to falsity.

To thine ownself be true.

Count on God, not others (or at least God first and foremost).

We long for the approval of others when we have an insecurity, and such insecurity often comes from a lack of prayer.

Stop counting on others to give you something they don’t have.

Jealousy prevents many from affirming others, and perhaps you. So why bother?

When we have peace, the Holy Spirit is sending the only approval we require.

It’s the enemy who makes us try to please everyone. He knows that will frustrate and discourage us. He does nothing better than make us waste our time.

Don’t try to win over people who are never going to be for you.

The One Who is always in your corner? (Your heart knows the answer to that.)

Certainly, you don’t want to alienate others; you don’t want to be stingy; you certainly don’t want to be haughty!

But neither do you want to bend to human will. Bend and bend and you break. This is the trouble with being a politician: their actions and words are largely predicated on what people want them to do or say. Did Jesus seem like He was running for office?

Shake the dust off your feet and move on (Matthew 10:14), when who you are--the “you” with whom you are most comfortable—doesn’t please neighbors or co-workers. If you don’t, you may miss your assignment. Bounce your thoughts not off others but off the Lord, His angels, and His Blessed Mother.

When you do, you bounce high (as opposed to against a wall).

[resources: books of inspiration]

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