Who do you try to please?

Are you a people pleaser? What does that mean, anyhow?

Perhaps it's someone who, as they say, "sucks up to the boss." That someone is surely trying to please people, as long as those people have authority of some sort over them.

Do you respect such people? Do you even trust someone who does that?

Perhaps a people pleaser is a "yes man." This is someone who goes along to get along, who always agrees just to be agreeable. Do you know someone like this? Do you ever wonder if he or she has any original thoughts or opinions of his or her own?

Do you respect such a person? Do you trust him? Does her word mean anything at all?

Or maybe a people pleaser is someone who is so insecure, she will go along with whatever you suggest, just so you will like her. Maybe there's no ill will there, just a lack of self worth.

Do you feel sorry for him, or do you blow him off?

What's really wrong with being a people pleaser?

Maybe not much, until you inevitably come face to face with a situation where you must make a choice.

Do I lie and say I'm really happy that he got the job I was hoping to land for myself? Or am I honest about it and say I don't want to talk about it?

Do I help cover up my coworker's dishonesty, do I keep quiet about it until asked, or do I tell my supervisor about it as soon as I find out? In one case, I'm loyal to my coworker but dishonest to the boss; in the other, I lie by omission and in the third, I do what seems to be the most honest thing by letting the boss know? Or am I letting the boss know to please him and make myself look better in his eyes.

The first of the 10 Commandments tells us to love God more than any human being and more than any other thing at all, for that matter. The second tells us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. The rest of them clarify how we are to treat one another: Don't lie, don't steal, don't want what belongs to someone else, honor your parents, don't commit adultery, don't gossip about anyone.

But if you think about it, loving God is the only real commandment there is. That's because it's impossible to love at all without God. You can try to own another person, or you can try to control someone else, or allow yourself to be controlled by someone else, you can be infatuated with someone else in a superficial way.

But it's impossible to love anyone in a truly unconditional way without God, because God IS love. And if you understand that, and you love yourself and others the way God does, the way he has tried to teach us to do, then the rest of it just falls into place. You don't have to worry about pleasing people, because you are pleasing God. And God wants us to treat each other well, with respect and honesty, with caring and in a way that allows us to live with dignity.

When our lives are pleasing to God, the people pleasing comes naturally, and we don't have to think about it or be motivated by that. Instead, we are motivated by a genuine concern for others and their well-being.

And those around us, our family, friends and neighbors, can sense that.

In I Corinthians, Chapter 13, St. Paul tells us:
Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, not pompous, not inflated.
It is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury.
It does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

People pleasing is none of those things. It isn't patient, but seeks instant gratification; it may appear kind, but only when rewarded; people pleasers may be quite jealous when spurned; people pleasers can be entirely pompous and self-righteous, with an inflated ego.
People pleasing can be rude and always seeks its own interests. People pleasers can be quick-tempered and hold grudges for a very long time if they do not get what they want.
People pleasers may rejoice in wrongdoing if they see an advantage for themselves in it, and may not rejoice in truth if it doesn't further their personal agendas.
People pleasers may be meek victims seeking self-worth in all the wrong places or arrogant people with inflated egos, but they do not believe all things or bear all things, they may hope for the wrong things and are not likely to endure all things.
And they always fail in the end to get what they are seeking, because they are looking in the wrong places.

You will never please all people, but if you can live your life and conduct your relationships with others in ways that are pleasing to God, you will find peace of mind and experience love in ways you cannot imagine.

And in the process, you may find yourself often pleasing others as you show a genuine interest in them, their lives and their well-being.

Who will you seek to please in your life?

Seven Pages A Day: What Would Your T-Shirt Say?

Wow.  I didn’t realize how hard it would be to blog about reading the Bible seven pages a day.  Over seven days, that’s a whole lotta pages!  I’ve already finished the Gospel of Matthew.  This Gospel was written by Matthew.  Matthew was probably a wealthy Jewish tax collector who was called to be a disciple and apostle by Jesus.  It’s clear he was writing to a Jewish audience because of his familiar references to prophecies from the Old testament and to Jewish customs which he doesn’t bother to explain.  Even so, a quick read of this Gospel by anyone is a moving experience. 

I decided I wanted time to digest what I’d read to some degree before moving on to the next Gospel.  So I skipped ahead to the letters of Paul.  Paul was a devout Jew who experienced a life changing conversion to Jesus Christ.  His missionary work and writings transformed the religious beliefs and philosophies in the lands around the Mediterranean seas.  It’s largely thanks to Paul that Christianity became the faith of Gentiles.  This is evident in the letter to the Romans in which he both emphasizes the debt the Gentiles owe to the Israelites, as well as grieves for what he feels was the ultimate lost opportunity, in that his own people did not recognize the promised Messiah.   Next came 1^st Corinthians, with its well-known passage on love in the thirteenth chapter.  Now, I’m reading 2^nd Corinthians.

But still, where to begin?  I thought maybe I would summarize by weighing in on a few of my favorite verses, but even that seemed daunting.  Then I got to thinking about all those book reports I wrote years ago in grammar school.  Maybe I could write little book reports!   I can give each book a title, summarize each one in a sentence or two, and follow it with a brief critique.  Probably leans towards the flippant, but here goes:

Gospel of Matthew:  “The Messiah has Come.”  This is the jaw-dropping story of how the Old Testament promises of a Savior, known as “King of the Jews,”  were fulfilled in Jesus.  Fantastic parables.  Dramatic finish.

Romans:  “The Gift of Faith Comes from The Jews.”   Paul waxes on about the deep roots Christianity has in Judaism, and shows himself to be quite the theologian.   A tad judgmental in tone.

1^st Corinthians:  “Knuckle-rapping in Corinth.”  Paul takes the Christians of Corinth to task on a number of different matters.  Some sections make one Raise the Brow, like 1 Cor.14:36: “It is a disgraceful thing for a woman to speak in a church meeting.”

That last one makes me want to get a t-shirt that says, “Disgracing the Church on a Regular Basis.”  How about you?  What would your t-shirt say?