“None of us are born as passive generic blobs waiting for the world to stamp its imprint on us. Instead we show up possessing already a highly refined and individuated soul.
Another way of thinking of it is: We’re not born with unlimited choices.
We can’t be anything we want to be.
We come into this world with a specific, personal destiny. We have a job to do, a calling to enact, a self to become. We are who we are from the cradle, and we’re stuck with it.
Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
A lie, propagated by our politically correct society, has had disastrous implications. Out of a desire to get kids to dream, we told them that they could be anything they wanted to be. It is simply not true.
In the process, we’ve lost one of the great treasures of the Kingdom. God meant something when He meant each one of us. The unique gifting, ability, and perspective of each one of us, dramatically shaped by the stories we’ve lived and hopefully the redemption we have found, has become minimized and obscured.
In a sea of choices, finding the right one, the clear and intended path becomes an impossibility. (A fork in the road at least provides a 50-50 chance!) My kid’s grandparents used to walk them into Toys-R-Us and tell them they could pick out anything they wanted under a particular dollar amount. Hours later, we were usually consoling some miserable children in tears over the myriad of choices they couldn’t narrow.
It’s funny how a perspective shapes a thought, image, or idea. The legalistic prism I used to view all things through, told me that the narrow gate and road that Jesus talked about was more about finding and adhering to the “right” set of behaviors rather than finding a uniquely created and divinely inspired purpose for my life.
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Bible commentaries say these verses are a warning about following false teachers. A warning we should all heed. For if the enemy of our souls can convince us we can become anything, we are very likely never going to find the unique and specific thing our Father intends.
If the great deceiver can keep us from finding the way to the life that uniquely and particularly most glorifies our God through us, he has likely accomplished his greatest victory.
The Father is more than what we’ve been led to believe.
And we are more, in Him, than we ever hoped or dreamed.
Figuring out why you exist is the narrow path and road to the only life worth living.
It is how He is most glorified through us.
I was working with an attendee at a LifePlan retreat this weekend (http://whydoiexist.net). When working on their purpose statement, after several exercises to bring clarity, they still couldn’t get past the fact they exist to glorify God. I told them that it was a “duh” statement. Of course we all exist to do that, but the real challenge is finding out how we are uniquely called and created to do that… it is the real treasure we are seeking that very few ever find.
As a beautiful line from the Lord of the Rings super trailer beckons: “Become who you were born to be.”
A few crucial questions:
- Do you know the life you were uniquely created to live?
- Do you have a clear plan to lead you toward that life?
- Are you living the kind of life that would inspire others to follow?