How to Please God

Lately I've been thankful for the freedom of the Christian faith. There is something strange yet very good about the fact that we can be sad or ill or disabled or confused or weak or failing and God can still be very pleased with us. In a way, he doesn't care about our situation or standing (though of course he is compassionate and will help us) - he just cares about our character. All we have to do to please our Father is to love him and love the people around us.

The other stuff will trouble us, but it doesn't reduce our value in God's sight. If each day we have strived to think and act and speak in love and repented when we have not, then it has been a good day.

Of course this is a very high calling. It means we must run to patience, kindness, humility, self-sacrifice, mercy, forgiveness, protection, trust, hope, perseverance and rejoicing in the truth. And we must flee their opposites - impatience, cruelty, envy, boasting, pride, rudeness, self-seeking(ness), anger, bearing grudges, delighting in evil, neglect, distrust, losing hope and giving up. But it is a very beautiful calling, and a better thing to worry about than happiness and success.