Is it wrong to be a people pleaser, or to want to make people happy. I don't think it is. I mean sure there is that time Paul talks about not pleasing people as it doesn't matter, but to please God is our main objective, and I agree full on with that. But I would suggest the Lord is pleased...greatly pleased when we do something for someone else. I am often told I am a people pleaser, and I'm okay with that. If I do something like lend my car here or pick up something there or take on an extra shift at work or whatever and by doing that someone else is happy then I will continue doing it, for I think when other people are happy the Lord is happy and that is why I am here - to please the Lord.

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So we just had RAW here in Vancouver, a great time. A bunch of teens all over BC spent their March break loving the Lord and serving the poor. One night we did this Tabernacle thing, set up some stations one with incense another reflecting on Christ and another of the holy of holies. The entire time we had this Matt Redman song on repeat "Are the Prayers of the saints like sweet smelling incense"...and me in my pride and in my selfishness began to think, no they are not. More people could be praying, there could be some more intersession, louder praise, etc. I was sad thinking that we weren't praying enough or weren't praying well and I didn't even ask the Lord...and then I asked him...are our prayers like sweet smelling incense expecting Him to say no and being discouraged...but I was humbled yet again by His response. He said yes, these prayers are like sweet smelling incense and an aroma that is very pleasing. The Lord loves it when His people pray and it is always a pleasing aroma when we pray.

While at RAW we were worshipping and the worship leader asked us if we wanted more, "Who wants more, more of the Lord" he asked. Now Im not denying that statement by any means, and I agree with it fully, that we should always be wanting, needing, desperatly searching for more of the Lord. But when he asked us that I heard the Lord say, I want more of you. The Lord wants more of us. It's a two way stream...we want more of the Lord and He wants more of us. He really wants more of us. All of us.

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Two people I love dearly and are very close to me have both resently been diagnosed with medical conditions both of which are controlled by diet and what you intake. I wonder what the Lord is doing? I'm not one to over-spiritualise things but I just wonder. A few years ago a bunch of people I knew where having heart issues. One had a heart attack, another was born with a heart murmur, someone else had a bypass and a forth was having unknown complications with her heart...through this the Lord was speaking to our hearts. How our hearts need to be right and clean...etc. And then recently I kept hearing about people and strokes which are complications in the brain and wondered if the Lord is teaching us to worship him with all our minds. And now is the Lord saying we need to rely on Him and His word to fill us. To watch our intake and make sure we don't consume anything that will harm us. In one sense why not...I mean the Lords truth and instruction is to work on having a clean heart, to lean all our understanding on Him, to worship Him with our whole mind and to flee from that which will harm and to intake all that is good. Either way it is still truth and still something we should do...but does recent events have any deeper meaning?