Stop and think about the days gone past; you may even say the good old days. Those are the days when life was way less complicated and there were a whole lot less worries in life. The days I am referring to are those good old childhood days. Life was full of having fun and enjoying family and friends. Yep, life sure was simple back then.
Going back to those childhood days you can remember how much friends meant to you. You enjoyed spending time with friends and just hanging out. To a large extent your world revolved around doing what your friends wanted to do. Just being part of the gang. That concept has probably continued to this day. I mean doing what your friends want to do just to be with them. You do not want to make waves, so you just go along with the crowd.
You consider yourself very successful, because you have a lot of friends. Herbert B. Swope has a little bit different idea about the idea of pleasing all your friends: “I cannot give the formula for success, but I can give the formula for failure—try to please everybody.” It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “ I can please all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but I cannot please all the people all the time.” Trying to do so can lead to a very discouraging life. You are not to please all the people even part of the time.
The Holy Bible tells us not to be people pleasers, but to be God pleasers. The only way to happiness on earth is to live a life well pleasing to God, regardless of what the crowd tells you to do. “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it’” (Luke 9:23-24). When you live for yourself and do what please you vice the Lord, is when you lose the real meaning in life. That is what happens when you please other people and do not please God. True meaning and happiness on this earth is only experienced in full obeying and living for the Lord God.
Try a different view of success by being a God pleaser not a friend pleaser!
