Need Someone To Make You Happy?
by Neva Bodin  

I have always been a people pleaser. I like to see people happy. I want to fix things that go wrong in relationships or in people’s lives. Or in my jobs or family. This is why I took on manager positions sometimes— thinking I could fix things! I believe psychiatric nursing is a love of mine because of this desire.  

I tried to fix things in any dispute in my family growing up, and when I couldn’t, I worried. This led to a nervous bowel problem. I often sat in the bathroom as I waited for the school bus during high school. A most embarrassing moment occurred one morning when I was forced to ask the bus driver to wait and let me use a neighbor's bathroom while in route to school.  

However, one thing I have learned: I can’t make people happy, nor give them peace. I can’t “fix” them. I can help them explore ways to find happiness, but ultimately, happiness is up to the individual to find for themselves. And peace comes from knowing God.   And pleasing people doesn’t always mean pleasing God. What would Jesus do?   

Once I knew that God loved me, that Jesus had died for me and wanted a relationship with me, I wanted to be a God pleaser. The “wanting” is easy, but the “being,” on a daily basis, is hard.   

We learn to please people right after we are born. (Followed by wanting to rebel sometimes too!) People try to make us smile. They act so silly and look so happy when we finally smile over something besides gas! (Perhaps those infant gassy smiles mean we are still connected to heaven, and God is sharing a joke with us!)  

At birth, I believe we are not consciously aware yet that we should please God. We do not know there are right and wrong ways to behave. We are new pages ready to receive information. (Although, it also seemed my daughters came with some ideas of their own.) I bet God smiled at us before our appearances on earth, gave us pats on our spiritual bottoms, and said, "Go down there and make me proud!" And our memories of heaven were blocked.  

If we are blessed enough to be introduced to our creator as we grow and become aware of our world, we learn about God’s love and the gift Jesus’s death on the cross gave us, and we want to please God. But also, being born of the world, and because we battle spiritual forces, it may not come naturally.  

Some say we are born with a “God-hole” in us, a place waiting to be filled by our creator’s presence. But since we can’t see him, and our family members and friends are ever before us, we think more about pleasing them at first.   

God gave us the gift of life. We were created for relationship with God. As we mature and realize he gave his son as a sacrifice for his earthly family who’d gotten off track in worshipping their creator and having a right relationship with him, we realize his immense love for us. And we want to please him. There is so much satisfaction in having a close relationship with God, pleasing him by accepting Jesus as our redeemer and rescuer, so much joy.  

And like David, I will tell God “of thy righteousness and of thy praise all the day long” (Psalm 35:28 KJV).   

Lord, you know I want to please you. But I fail sometimes…all right, maybe more than just sometimes. You gave us Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, the substitute for our sin because of our need. How can I fail to see you will provide for me? Even when I think others fail me, you won’t. How can I not want to please you every minute of my day and night?    

Forgive my “trespasses” or transgressions. Help me to forgive others when they don’t please me. I am not here to be made happy by others, or to always satisfy others. But I am here to please you. Then you will be pleased with me.  What a burden is lifted to know I don’t have to please others. Just you. And others will be blessed by that. For if I behave as you would have me behave, others will see the joy in following and loving you.    

Thank you for your living word which guides me daily.

Thank you for your forgiveness and patience. The Bible, in 2 Peter 3:9 (KJV), says you are a patient God, not willing “that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”    

Thank you for your Holy Spirit who daily helps me fulfill your will. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Amen.