Work hard, but not just to please your masters when they are watching. As slaves of Christ, do the will of God with all your heart. “ Ephesians 6:6 NLT
I lived most of my life trying to please others. In year 9, I had to be ‘cool.’ If my hair wasn’t perfect and my clothes not just right, I had a bad day. If people made fun of me, I was devastated. When people finally accepted me, I felt a new sense of accomplishment and pride. “I don’t care what you think!” I would yell at my mum but the only reason I didn’t care what she thought was because I cared so much about what other people thought. I deceived myself. “Why don’t you just let me be myself?” But I didn’t even know who I was. Satan has our whole generation so deceived. We have to be like everyone else. We have to wear the same clothes as everyone else, talk like everyone else, walk like everyone else. ‘Everyone else’ controls our lives.
In year 12, I found that people were completely different when I’d talk to them one-on-one from who they were around groups of people. Why is that? Why can’t we just be who we are without caring so much about what others think? I should be so consumed with pleasing God that when I mess up, I can’t help but go to Him and ask for forgiveness, because I know that He’s the one that matters. So many times, when we sin, we just go to other people who have done the same things, and justify it because they do it too. We strengthen each other in rebellion against the God who could save us from ourselves. He is the only one who can keep us from killing one another. What are the things God has spoken to your heart to do, that you’ve disobeyed because it’s “too far out there”? Did you know Paul was beaten, stoned, whipped, and imprisoned so many times because he loved Jesus? There are people just like Him in other countries right now too. I even struggle with this. Just today, I was sitting, listening to a speaker. He asked us to stand up and yell things about who we were in Christ. First I sat there; waiting to see what everyone else would do, and then I thought about what they would think if I did stand up and shout something. If I’m so on fire for God, why didn’t I just stand up and yell what was on my heart, because I love Him so much?
Whenever I don’t let God into my life, I can’t love anyone but myself, so I go around trying to make people like me. After a while, I even hate myself. I try to be an individual, but I end up trying to please the crowd while looking like an individual. When I can’t please the whole crowd, I find one person who will accept me for who I am, and then I spend my life trying to please that person.
I found the only way out is to get into God’s presence through His Word. 
“That is why we have a great High Priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God. Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it.” Hebrews 4:14-16 [NLT]
The only way I can start living the way God wants me to live is to choose to believe that I am who He says I am. God shows me who I am when I’m in His presence. Not just words, but pictures, and images of who He wants me to be. He constantly renews that vision, and I am constantly hungry for more of His presence. I can now can begin to be a blessing to people, helping them get out of the box, instead of forcing them to fit the shape that most suits me. When I let God in my heart, my heart gets bigger and bigger, big enough to let other people in, one by one, until the whole world is in there, extremists, Muslims, Christians, refugees, Africans, losers, freaks, jocks, Goths, punks, everyone-because they’re people made in the image of the God who lives inside of me through His Spirit.
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