This past week I had the opportunity to preach at Celebrate Youth for their middle and high school services. In the course of the message, I asked the question – Who do you want to be?

That’s been a thought that’s been running through my mind quite a bit lately. You see, we live in a world where we are used to asking ourselves questions like, “What do you want to do next?” or What should you be doing?” or  “Why aren’t you doing this or that?” We’re used to asking ourselves questions that are location and work based but never eternally based.

But that’s not who I want to be. I intentionally choose not to let my work or my location define who I want to be. I purposefully do not allow the circumstances that I find myself in to dictate who I am going to be. I want to be something different and maybe you do too.

You see, like most of us when I was a child I played a game called “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” I wanted to be a race car driver, fireman, an astronaut, a scientist, a test pilot, and an F-16 pilot. That’s who I wanted to be and ultimately that is what drove me to do well in science and attend Space Camp. (Hard to believe right?)

As an adult, I choose to accept a call that God placed on my life to become a pastor. With accepting that call and the ordination that followed, I also choose to accept whatever role God placed in front of me in order to accomplish His will. Which ultimately is why I find myself sitting in the role as the primary IT and Website point at my church.

In spite of choosing and accepting God’s call on my life, the question of “Who do I want to be?” is one that is difficult to answer. It’s difficult because by making a choice, I ultimately am saying no to other potential options that might come my way.

Allow me to share some examples that might explain this a little further:

If I want to be a person who loves others – then I am choosing to put aside my prejudices and fears and extend love without expecting it to be reciprocated. It might be easy to step into those fears or prejudices, but because I want to be a person that holds other people sacred – I can’t allow those fears or prejudices into my life.

If I want to be a person of joy – then I must choose to cast of my natural inclination towards pessimism and focus on the beauty that lies each person I encounter. It may be very easy for me to point out all that I see that’s wrong and needs to be changed, but because I choose to be a person of joy that means that I must look past those things that need to be changed and find value in the good things that are happening.

If I want to be a person of patience – then I must choose to remove the temptation to accomplish the task and be willing to wait for God to unfold His will before me.  It may be very easy for me to allow my to-do list to rule my life and ruin the relationships around me, but because I choose to be a person of patience I choose God’s timing over my timing – regardless of my sense of urgency.

If I want to be a person of integrity – then I must expect that my integrity will come into question and be prepared to respond in a way that is above reproach. If may be easy for me to slip by with the bare minimum, but because I choose to be a person of integrity I can give nothing but my very best in everything I do.

If I want to be a person after God’s own heart – then I must ignore all the things around me that are not of God and spend my time knowing and loving God as well as the things that He loves. It may be easy to simply say that I’ve got a growing relationship with God but because I want to be a person after God’s own heart I have to choose to love, obey, and even hate the very things that God does as well.

So the question of “Who do I want to be?” is an important question because the way we answer that question is the way we will ultimately choose to live our lives.

 So what are your thoughts? Who do you want to be? What has God made you to be? Are your answers to both those question the same? What do you do if they’re not?