If I Be Lifte Up
A
man and his
grandson went on a journey one day, walking and leading a
donkey. Soon they met
a man who said, "How foolish for you to be walking. One of you
should be
riding the donkey." So the man put his grandson on the animal.
The
next traveler
they met frowned and said, "How dreadful for a strong boy to be
riding
while an old man walks." With that the boy climbed off the
donkey and his
grandfather climbed on.
The
next person
down the road, however, said, "I just can't believe that a grown
man would
ride and make a poor little boy walk." So the man pulled the boy
aboard
and off they rode on the donkey together.
That
is, until they
met the fellow who screamed, "I never saw anything so cruel in
all my
life, two intelligent human beings riding on one poor,
defenseless
donkey."
Down
the road a
short distance, the trio met a couple of men traveling together.
After they had
passed, one of the men turned to the other and said, "Did you
ever see two
bigger fools than those who were carrying that donkey?"
How
do you please
everyone? YOU CAN'T! Don't even try! Just do your best to please
God. Perhaps
that's the lesson Paul had learned when in wrote in Galatians
1:10... “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.” The sooner that each
of us learns that we cannot live by the conscience
of other men, the better off we will be. When we try to please
others we
sometimes find ourselves in a far worse predicament than when we
first started.
So, follow the advice Peter gave in Acts 5:29.... "We must obey
God rather
than men.”
