Christ in me

School starts tomorrow.

As I start weeping on the keyboard, I want to share what I've been learning lately.

Fact: I constantly try to please people.  Fact: I've been starting to realize that.  False: This is a good thing that I should nurture and strive to keep.

If you didn't notice that the last comment was indeed false, go ahead and re-read it.  If I'm in a group of people, I'm always trying to be the funny, smart, cool one whom everybody likes.  My time with people sometimes seems like it's Barnum, Bailey, and Ben.  I do everything in my power to be liked.  That's my goal.  That's not necessarily what my goal should be.  

When I look at the people who I admire, one of my role models is Bob Lee.  I like Bob.  He's a cool guy.  He doesn't strive for people's compliments, he doesn't strive for people's attention.  What Bob does that makes him special is follow God and His plan, and put God's goals before his own goals.  I want to be like that.  I don't want to be working towards people's liking, but I want to be working to be God's son, whose constantly working to serve Him.

Please note that this isn't a "screw it, no one likes me, so I'm just not going to try" kind of note, but this is a "there's a change in me, and I'm just going for Jesus, not your approval."

So what this means for the school year is this:  My goal isn't to "just be myself".  My goal isn't to be the perfect me that can be.  I can't be perfect.  I can strive for perfection, but I'm never going to be perfect.  My goal is to best let Christ in me work in me rather than try to win people's approval by what I can do.  I'm going to school tomorrow, and I know for a fact that Christ in me is going to rock it.