Roller Coaster

What a roller coaster the last week could have has been for me!
Please let me explain for a few moments...

I walked into a venue (not our Church) and one the first things that happened was a guy stood up and started going off his nut at me and a mate. Using an expletive ladened tirade, he expressed how he felt about us. Obviously not my biggest fan! 
Later that same night and at the same venue later I had fans.

Then in the last 24 hours I have been told of 2 totally different peoples opinions of me.
One person thinks I am not very good as a leader.
The other thinks I am really good as a leader.

If I based my life. 
Based my opinions of my own value. 
Lived my life based on what others think and say about me. It would be an emotional roller coaster! Complete with spiral twists and turns that one moment make me smile, and the next make me want to throw up.

I have heard it said we should live our lives 'for an audience of one'.
That 'one' being God. Living in such a way as to just focus on pleasing Him.
The trouble is we forget to do this or even how to do this...so I find it easy to go back to old habits.

What I have tried to do for many years relates to that concept, and I have found far more effective for me personally.
Don't try to live your life to please.
Instead live your life to serve.

So what does that mean practically?
Pleasing people is such hard work! And it is ultimately very frustrating.
People judge you then on your motives and effectiveness to varying degrees and score you accordingly. And if you are a little sensitive at times like me, the scores given out can dictate your perceived value.

Instead I do my best to just serve others. In whatever way I can with the talents, time and resources at my disposal, I simply try and serve.
And in the serving you end up by default live your life 'for an audience of one'.

Can I encourage you to shake off the bounds that trying to please imposes?
Choose to serve others as a way of life.
And see what God does through you and for you as you do...

Something to think about...

Matthew 20:26-28 niv
26...whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”