Jeannie in a Bottle

Welcome to Traces Space.  I was just sitting here enjoying a cup of coffee, reading the news of the day, and then some.   I then started to become flooded with thoughts, thoughts of how good and well meaning folks are, and well, how cruel and insincere they are as well.
Oh, it's going to get deep here!
Like many of you, if we are honest, I have often felt like the last kid picked for a game in gym class, wait! I was! Anyway, I have always felt as if I wasn't good enough, pretty enough, the right size, and most of all eloquent in the delivery of information, or just being able to engage in conversation.
Trying very hard can cause a person to lose their joy very quickly because even though you have done your very best, you have lost what you were doing just by over doing the process.  Being a people pleaser ain't easy, and it's not pleasing.  Does that make sense.  In other words, folks just want you to get it done, they really could care less about the process... Harsh reality, but that is our world today.
We are the people labeling / pleasing generation.  Example, you know her, she's the one who has crazy eyes, they roll just because! Seriously, the girl with blonde hair who tells lame jokes, or the fat worship leader! Isn't she lovely, look at her new shoes!
Now stick with me here, all this negativity is going to take a turn soon!
Years ago I knew someone who I shall call sickening fake niceness.  On the outside they appeared to have it all together, they were a walking talking Jeannie in a bottle equipped with a full bottle of fake happy pills! Everyone loved this person, when they walked into a room people were magnetically pulled into their atmosphere.  The outside was attractive in appearance, and the speech was beautiful and uplifting.  Everything this person touched was perfect.  People who knew of this person always had a kind word.  But then there were those of us who really knew!
See this person had stuff, you know life stuff like the rest of us.  In order to feel good about what was left of the mess they were living was nothing more than a facade. They did everything humanly possible to look good.  They hid in their appearance, and hid behind their words.  So hungry for love and acceptance, the lie became more important than what truth could really give them.  What they wanted folks to see wasn't ever really good enough, it always had to be bigger and better.  Then they hit the wall.  The wall of truth!
See you can only live this way for so long.  Just like onions, the surface gets torn off, then the peeling process begins.  As the truth eventually came out, as it always does, lie after lie was exposed, and the one thing this person feared more than the truth became the result of all of this, pity.
Was there joy for me in any of this, I mean they got what was coming to them, but no.  It was awful!
God doesn't want us to feel like we aren't good enough.  He doesn't want us to have to fake anything, and He certainly isn't a Jeannie in a bottle.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to give pleasure to folks or make them happy, but when that need consumes you or steals your joy it is nothing more than a device of the enemy.
There is a whole lot of people, myself included who feel not good enough, but there is a time to get over it and know that God chose you to fulfill a purpose and what it is you do or say can and does honor Him and that is what matters.
We are called to serve others and honor Him, each with a gift from Him for His purpose, not ours, His... that's where the Joy of the Lord is our strength fits in, because without Him we are minus Joy! Self don't fit!
In the end your legacy isn't going to be how well you performed, or how good you looked, but the Truth you lived.
See you next time.