I'm reading Beth Moore's devotion Jesus: 90 Days with the One and Only. Yesterday we studied Luke 4: 1-13, where Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. While listing ways in which I am tempted, I wrote something that I had never really conceptualized before.
"I am afraid of being hurt by people so I ignore the One who would never hurt me in order to satisfy imperfect people."
I think that, for me, temptation comes in the form of trying to please others. I want to make everyone happy and be the best that I can be. It's a great goal, but sometimes it causes my priorities to be out of order. Sometimes it causes me to put pleasing others before pleasing God. And this is not something that is behind me. It's something that I deal with today and will deal with tomorrow. And I will probably give in to pleasing others more than I should.
Why does that happen? Why do we put pleasing those who have the ability to hurt us above pleasing the One who never will? I think it's because we take for granted that God will always love us. Always forgive us. Always accept us.
I agree, Renee... It is so easy to get caught up in pleasing others instead of looking to the ONE Who made us and wants us to be more like Him... not others around us. Great thought for today!
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