Have you ever felt that there must be something more? Wondered why you are so bored with your life? I must confide that I often have these feelings and would do anything to find that "something more" in life.
Recently I was thinking about the things that I know God has called me to and something occurred to me. I realized that I am the problem; that I am creating my own boring life. All this time I've been blaming my boredom on my circumstances and it turns out that they're not to blame! Can you believe it? I absolutely hate it when I realize that I am the only one to blame and can't pin it on anybody else.
But the question is, why? Why have I been creating a boring life for myself. I certainly don't want to be bored. Why do I keep making decisions that aren't pleasing to me? Who am I trying to please? Then, all of a sudden it becomes so clear, I'm trying to please other people.
As a Christian, there is one "person" I should try to please, and that is God. While this is true, somehow I find it difficult to only please Him. I often find myself giving into the temptation to please people around me. I figure out who "they" want me to be and I act accordingly never truly being who God has made me to be. It really is so funny. God wants me to be myself, to be who he made me to be; it is so simple and easy. People want me to fit into the mold they have made for me which I have to poke and prod to get in to. So you would think that I would find it easier to please God, but I don't. Why? Because instead of having the fear of God on the inside of my heart I have the fear of man.
To have the fear of God means to place more importance on Him than on ourselves. To have the fear of man is to make our peers more important than God; they are made to be an idol in our life. So why do we do this? There are many different reasons but for me it is mostly fear that I won't fit in, that somebody will notice I'm different from them. There is a culture dictation that everybody must fit in, that the "nail that sticks up get hammered down". It is because of this culture that I find myself always trying to fit in with my surroundings instead of being bold as God has made me to be. God has called us to be conquerors, not to be afraid to stand tall as the men and women of God that we are. If we would only embrace God and be ourselves our lives would change forever.
God created each one of us with a purpose. We all have different callings in life and until we are on the path of fulfilling those callings, we will continue to be bored. To start this process, we must stop putting our peers before God. Stop caring so much about what other people think of us. We must begin to place importance on what God says about us and who He wants us to be. We must stop trying to fit into the crowd and begin to stand up as the people that God has made us to be!
So, the question is who will we choose to follow? Will we follow God or our peers? It is up to us to choose where to place our focus. Who will you choose this day?
