I was driving home from school last week, and I got to the corner of Mansfield and Bert Kouns where Brookshires is. I needed to turn right, but the light was red. I couldn’t see the traffic coming from the left because an 18-wheeler was in the way, so I choose to wait until my light turned green. The person in the truck behind me was not pleased with my decision and honked at me until the light turned green. When the person first started honking, I began to stress, and I thought about just going ahead and turning. But then I kinda heard the Jesus speak to me. He said something along the lines of, “Focus only on pleasing me, listen only to my voice. Don’t become distracted by others. If you just listen to me, you won’t be stressed or pressured into dangerous situations.”  

Whenever we start to get caught up in pleasing others, we turn into a chicken with their head cut off. We have no real purpose for anything we do. We’re just trying to appease as many people as we can. Eventually, we’ll get too overwhelmed and break. When we put our focus back on God and focusing on pleasing him, the weight on our shoulders to be enough and to make everyone happy leaves. We can finally be at peace. Galatians 1:10 says “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”  

And when you’re only goal is to please God, then you realize that his timing is so much better than ours. You are in the place you are in for a reason. It may not be a happy, fun place to be in, but if you try to move before God tells you to, you’re back outside of God’s will. As hard and as bad as some situations can be, they’re never permanent. And God is using that experience to glorify Him and bring honor to His name.

 It may be hard to believe right now, but that phrase “Hindsight is 20/20,” is so true. Once you are out of that moment, you can see God moving in your life. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.” - Ecclesiastes 3:1-3. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 continues to talk about the times for different things. And even in the valleys of life you can have peace if you just trust in God’s timing.

In life (especially high school), it is so easy get caught up in pleasing others. We’re still trying to figure life out, and there’s so many things and people calling for our attention. If we can learn now that God’s plans are so much better than ours, we’ll be a bit wiser than most teens.