I recently had ‘em handed to me by a good friend. He said, “When I see someone running as hard as you run, I wonder who he’s trying to please.” He didn’t even think, “Is he trying to please someone?” He knew that answer. The question was who?
Most of us start out trying to please our dads. That’s the “who” for some of us for our entire lives, whether we realize it or not. For years, each time I’d get a promotion or a raise, I’d call my dad before I’d call my wife. Never thought about what this really said about the most significant “who” in my life.
But after surrendering to the Lord and “replacing” my earthly dad with my Heavenly Father, things changed. I released my earthly dad of all my expectations and from all of the things I wished he had been and done. I forgave him and accepted him “just as he was” for the rest of his life. But before long, I was driving just as hard as a sold-out Christian as I was as a secular-focused man. Why?
The reality is, we make God our work. We make Him something we do. The church loves it because we fill all of the volunteer jobs, fill the seats and the fill the offering plates.
But we miss what God really wants. These are the things that flow from the Holy Spirit who's living in our hearts when we stop running as "humans doing" and become "humans being."
