This week the topic for the Five Minute Friday link-up post is Loyal. What is a link-up? Essentially a link-up is when you join other bloggers and write on a similar topic. You share your blog posts with one another and begin conversations via a host site. You can head over to Kate Motaung’s page to check out other entries from inspired bloggers. Here’s my five minutes of uninterrupted, unedited writing on this week’s topic:
Proverbs 21:21– Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honor.
If I could sum up the frustrations of my day today I could do so using the single word: loyalty.
Someone I know asked me to make a decision that I felt was not aligned with my personal values. Immediately I knew that the decision to go along with their plans would be a mistake and the consequences could be substantial. By no means am I trying to state that my moral compass is always attuned to True North, but I have a hard time ignoring my conscience when it senses something is not right.
All of this to say that sometimes it is difficult to remain loyal to what I believe. Temptation is something we all struggle with and I wrestle with certain temptations regularly. A downfall of mine is that I like to please people. Generally, I filter actions through one of two questions: “What will people think of…?” and “What would God say about…?” And I’m embarrassed to say that more times than not the first thing I think of isn’t God’s view on the situation, but rather man’s view of me.
For some reason, today, my heart was convicted to ask about God’s view first, and thankfully His Word and His Truth kept me from making a decision that would have burdened me with regrets. It can be hard to say “no” to people. I get very uncomfortable when I feel like I’ve disappointed someone or made them upset. But in the end I made the decision to remain loyal to the virtues of righteousness as God’s Word so clearly outlines.
Being loyal to values will always win in a moral dilemma.
I am so thankful for a God who protected me from making a decision that could have hurt my witness and testimony.
The Ameri Brit Mom
The Ameri Brit Mom 
Hello. I’m joining you from Five Minute Friday, and the first thing I noticed is your blog title. I am a Canadian who lives with my American husband and our sons in the USA. So we have a little in common. 🙂
I really liked the honesty of your post. I also struggle with my desire to please others, and admittedly have a difficult time sorting out my feelings about how others view me, and what God is telling me. It may be a life-long battle, but I trust that as we continue to spend time with God and as we obey his voice, we will be able to recognize it more quickly and accurately.
Thanks for sharing your victory in this today!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great, transparent and thoughtful post.
I shouldn’t be too worried about wanting to please others; we are, after all, still citizens of dual nationality, as it were We are enjoined to “render unto Caesar that which is his”, and in a similar vein we do live in this temporal creation, one that was shaped by Divine hands…and it perhaps behooves us to pay meet attention to exactly that – what others think.
#2 at FMF this week.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2016/08/your-dying-spouse-199-phoenix-rising-fmf_25.html
LikeLike