"Are you living to please God?... or people?"
Duh. Oh how easy it is to get off track. I'm thankful for that gentle reminder this morning from Pastor Pete, which made some issues that I've been struggling with the last few days suddenly become crystal clear. No wonder I've been sick. No wonder I've been feeling so spent. People pleasing is exhausting.
Most of you know I have attended a church in Nashville, Crosspoint Community Church, for several years now. Pete Wilson is our Senior Pastor and speaks most weekends at our church. This weekend though, he was invited to speak at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. Some of you may be familiar with Saddleback's Pastor, Rick Warren. Rick wrote the best selling book "The Purpose Driven Life" which was one of the books that totally changed my life and gave me much needed perspective on how to live my life with... well, purpose. (again.... duh.) Anyway.... it is super cool to see our own "Pastor Pete" speaking to the congregation of over 20,000 that attend Saddleback each week at all of their campuses. And it was neat to be able to watch him online as I lay in bed this morning, still recovering from one of the worst cold's I've had in years.
"I'm guessing you aren't going to make it to church this morning?", said my sweet husband as he stood over the bed, looking at me as I lay there sniffling, still in my pj's. "What time is it?", I ask. "One minute before we need to leave.", he answered with a smile that let me know he already knew he would be attending church without me this morning. "Sorry honey", I said. He gave me a pat on the head, "That's ok. Feel better." he said as he left me alone with my sneezes and sniffles and a laptop computer.
I got on twitter and saw someone post that they were watching Pete speaking online at Saddleback. "I'll bet he's speaking one of the messages I've heard him speak before." I thought to myself. "I probably don't need to listen to something I've already heard." -- However, something or someone suddenly put my fingers on the keyboard and typed in "Saddleback church online".... sure enough, there popped up Pastor Pete, and it didn't take long to realize that he was indeed preaching a sermon that I have heard him speak at Crosspoint, but it suddenly gripped my heart in a different way this time. Although it always made sense to me, because of what I've been dealing with the last few days, his words spoke directly to a place in my heart that needed direction.
When we live for the approval of people we are:
1. Destined for mediocrity
2. Destined for exhaustion
Like I said earlier, I've heard it before. I know the message. But dang, it spoke directly into my heart today and I'm so thankful for the gentle and timely reminder.
Too often, we choose being liked over being real, and that is too much of a burden to bear. We have to be authentic, because trying to change so that we fit other people's expectations of us is exhausting.
If you feel like you are in the same place I've been.... you should give yourself a break this morning. Grab a cup of coffee, pull up an easy chair and watch Pete's sermon online here. They show the service live on Saturday and Sunday, but they show a repeat of the sermon every 2 hours all week long. So you can catch it anytime this week that you have a moment.
So for all of you "people pleasers" like me out there... hang on. There is another way. And it's soooooo much easier. Trust me on this one....
love y'all..... M
