Hebrews 11:6 and it is impossible to please God without faith. anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. NLT

When I began reading this I immediately stopped at the part where it says "it is impossible to please him". This section of the verse is difficult for me because I view God as my father. Ever since I was born I was the little girl that always wanted to impress her Dad. Always looking up at him after she did a ballet recital in her living room, or peering out of a baseball helmet trying to search for the approval in his eyes. I always wanted to be the best for him. I was not okay with being just mediocre, I wanted to have the confidance that I would be the one in control of the situation so that I could stand out among the rest. But it became more than that, I would start to get angry with myself if I wasn't reaching all these standards that I had set for myself. It was no longer my Dad that I thought I was dissapointing it was myself. Which later translated to me being a dissapointment to God. Being human I couldn't obtain all these goals I had set, and would start to get frustrated with myself if I messed up on small school assignments, or a connecting pass in soccer. It wasn't till this last year that I started to let that go, it was hard for me to be okay with coming broken to the cross. I was used to having everything together, I was the one that was supposed to be the good example to my friend group at school, be the model older sister for my younger siblings, and the words of wisdom to my small group at youth. I got a type of pride from it too, I wouldn't have admitted it though, I might have even seemed like I was humble to others but in my head I was so prideful.

I think that humans crave the affection that people give them so therefore we try to please everyone or even just ourselves. This is also the same for God. Although he doesn't fall for our mask, or our schemes. He sees right through us. We have a hard time with this concept because it isn't human works that has gotten us saved it was because of Jesus. this is difficult because that means we cannot control the outtcome. We could be putting on an act for everyone around us that we were serving with our whole heart, for God, when all we wanted was reccognition from others that we really did nothing to deserve.

It is impossible to please him for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists. This, is still faith. It says, that you need to have faith to please God, and it starts there. I think that most people try and skip this important step. They move straight to the works that they have to do because the world has ingrained in them that they have to have to earn their way to heaven. Not being able to fathom that God would let them off the hook with only asking them to have faith. How is it that God, the creator of this universe is proud of us when we only have to believe? He could command of us anything thing he wants and yet all he asks is that we have faith and go from there. We are not even equivalent to the dirt that his shoes would grace the presence of walking on. Yet, he allows us to cling to him and believe in him. The verse even goes to say that those who seek him, he will reward. We will never, ever, be able to deserve the reward that God has for us. So why do I keep getting caught up in selfishly trying to please him when he is already proud of me?

Some one once told me there are too types of pride; there is the self-rightous kind, but there is also the pride of the meek. The pride of those who think they will never be able to amount to anything in God's eyes. The kind of those who think that God could never forgive them for what they have done. This however, is limitting God. When I came here to IGNITE I was full of the self-rightous pride. then after a quick and hard reality check, I stooped to the other kind of pride. Not even realizing that's what it was.

Application:
Today when I write my next ibs I will write it in one go not going back to edit it. trying to make it as raw as I can and trying to be okay with it not being perfect.