Are You Who You Want to Be?
Steadfastness. I truly believe that the greatest compliment you could give someone is the compliment of steadfastness. This word is an all-encompassing character word. It describes someone who perseveres, stays true to their core beliefs, continues even when it’s hard, and comes out stronger on the other end. A steadfast person knows who they are.
Is this a word that you would use to describe yourself, why or why not? Switchfoot is one of my favorite bands of all time. They have a song, This is Your Life. There is a line in the chorus that echoes the crux of the song, “this is your life, are you who you want to be?” It’s quite an exposing question. It requires two thing: one, that we have an understanding of who we are aspiring to be, and two, that we would be honest enough to say whether we are truly becoming more like that person or not.
The beauty of the question is that it acknowledges an important reality: this is your life. You are not anybody else and nobody else is you. No one else is completely responsible for you except for you! Now, I don’t want to turn this into an “if it is to be it’s up to me” talk. The point I want to drive home here is that how you decide to live your life today determines who you are becoming tomorrow – your choices matter, friend.
I’ve heard some people say over the years that they will come back to Jesus later on in life. After they experience the world a bit and spend some time doing what they really want. It reminds me of a story of my baseball days. There was a kid who was really something growing up – a great pitcher. His dad decided to have him not play for a few years as he started high school so as to “save” his arm. He came back to play as a senior and his body didn’t have the movements required to be a great pitcher anymore. His lack of continued practice over those off years stunted his growth in baseball.
There’s an important lesson in this example: it’s incredibly difficult to become someone tomorrow that we’re not practicing to be like today. Jesus’ teachings support this. He implored His listeners to not worry about tomorrow for today has enough worries of its own (Matthew 6:34). We are to focus on today because we’re not promised tomorrow. Stick with me, I’m not contradicting myself here with all of this “tomorrow” language.
Do you know who you’re aspiring to be? “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21). A helpful question to help you answer the above is to ask yourself, what is my heart pursuing today? This is a shortcut to the thing that you treasure the most. And the thing we treasure the most is where our efforts are being invested and this is slowly shaping the person that we’re becoming. Are you happy with that person?
Jesus tells us that He will know that we are His disciples by one thing – if we obey His teachings. I don’t usually quote The Message translation, but the way this was worded fits well here: “If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the truth will free you” (John 8:31-32).
In order for this freedom to be something that we experience, we need to first know what Jesus said. We do this by reading the Bible and studying what He was like, how He lived, and what were His expectations of us. Then, we put those truths to practice today.
There’s a crucial element to this practice that cannot be left aside. This is not a “do it all yourself, to be it all yourself” teaching. I also don’t want to throw us off the rails here, so for now I’ll just say – Jesus left us with His Holy Spirit. The Spirit works in us as we believe and step into faith in Jesus. There’s a supernatural exchange that’s taking place that’s much deeper than us just practicing new habits. The truth to not forget here is that God is working in us through this process as well. He’s doing something while we’re doing something and the result of that is we are becoming someone today both through our choices and through His work in us.
The Spirit will be a topic that we further look into down the road, so hang on to that. For now, I want to encourage you to be honest with yourself today. Do you know who you’re becoming? And would you actually be content if you became that person? Answering these questions are important because they determine our personal trajectory. God is ready and willing to work through and in you today – choose Him, allow Him, and He will. Dear friend, this is your life – are you who you want to be?
