We Are Becoming Who We Are
Jon Arnold | January 18, 2011
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s the go-to adult question for children – especially adults who aren’t very comfortable with children. Or are meeting a child for the first time. Implied in that simple, innocuous interrogative is the skeletal structure of a system of values. It assumes first that you are not anything now – merely a possibility, a hope, a beginning. It presumes you will grow into some thing – a career, a pursuit, maybe even a position of influence or authority. It infers that the meaning of every human life is inexorably linked to the things we do – especially the things we do for a living.
No one ever asks “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” In fact, we seldom ask ourselves who we are becoming.
When I am older, will I be…kind or cold; generous or tight-fisted; considerate or self-absorbed; patient or quick-tempered? Will I be an influential mentor who lifts others to achieve their full potential or a ladder-climber seeking my own advancement? Will I be wise or foolish? Will my faith be stronger or weaker? Will I have moral and relational integrity or be marked by my indiscretions? Will I know Jesus any better than I do today?
Often we assume these things just happen. Some of them are hard-wired into our personality or burned in by our upbringing. It’s true – personality appears at birth. Our strengths and weaknesses are apparent almost before we can walk or talk. So much of who we are is part of the wonder and weight of being human. Blessing or curse, we are who we are.
But we don’t have to stay that way.
Character is different than personality. It is more than the sum total of our natural instincts and inclinations. It is shaped partly by our experiences, but more by how we choose to process and persevere through them. And we do choose. With every waking moment we are presented paths to pick from. Our decisions shape our destiny. And inherent in each choice is the seed that will grow into our future character, a tree not limited by birthright or upbringing or natural ability.
Most days, we don’t consider this. We hope we’ll end up better people. We assume we will “grow up” or “figure it out” at some point. Sadly, we often never do. What will I be like when I am 30? 40? 50? Unless you and I take direct, deliberate action to intervene, the answer is simply “more of what I am now.”
Creation itself, from the beginning of time to the end of the universe, is kept in rhythm by the cycle of sowing and reaping, seed time and harvest. Every living thing is sustained by an ecosphere that refreshes itself though birth and growth, each after its kind. Scripture leverages this truth heavily – not as a pithy metaphor, but as a metaphysical reality – what you sow you also will reap.
Who you will be later depends on the seeds you plant today. Wishing does not make it so. If you hope to be someone different in ten years but do nothing different tomorrow, your harvest will not change. Ruthlessly clawing your way to the top but believing you will later be generous and helpful to others is as pointless as planting watermelons, then hoping and praying for wheat.
Simply put, we are becoming who we are.
Change can be harder than you think. It can take a lifetime. If you are naturally critical, kind and generous words can be as hard to conjure as water from a rock. If you tend toward selfishness, altruism can seem out of reach. For the impatient, it can be hard to fathom being described as long-suffering.
This is, of course, because lasting change requires time, energy, and endurance. Reality TV transformations are the only ones that take place overnight (and they aren’t reality). Through a thousand fits and starts and long obedience in the same direction we can become someone new, but only if we start today.
Life has a way of speeding by. Just yesterday, I was in my twenties, with all the time in the world to come into my own. Today in my mid-thirties, staring down the gun barrel of forty, I am smack dab in the middle of the years that typically define a life.
Over four years ago, I unwittingly started down a path that would fundamentally transform the course of my life. It began with a general unrest – a thought tickling at the corners of my consciousness: “who am I becoming?” Untold time, prayer, study, and personal introspection led to one inescapable conclusion: whoever I am becoming, I’m not sure I like him very much.
As the saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.” Meaning that no matter the change of scenery and venue, your constant companion is you, and you two can’t have separate rooms. I decided I needed a different roommate.
I realized I was settling for less, waiting for someone to recognize who I wanted to be and make it happen. Worst of all, I wasn’t even considering who God wanted me to become. I was allowing the street-level realities of life – the need to make a living and pay bills, the established structure of my chosen profession, the opinions of others – to mold who I was becoming. And it suddenly became clear – if I don’t do something now, I will wake up too old, too set in my ways, too disillusioned and bitter, wondering where the years went.
I ended up completely reversing my entire life. My secondary hobby became my primary day-job. My day-job became my true calling and reason for being. I drifted away from many with whom I was extremely close and became fast friends with others I barely knew or had never met. And all completely as a by-product – I never consciously set out to do any of that, but it all happened as a natural consequence of my choice to change.
I’ve often said that we are like computers – we all have factory default settings. No matter who we think we are or would like to be, apply enough pressure, stress, and fatigue, and we snap right back to our engrained patterns. Real transformation, then, is more than just momentary change or being able to verbalize the latest trendy words and ideas. It requires resetting our defaults, and in my experience that is painful, slow, and lonely work. It happens out in the wasteland, where John the Baptist types go to wear fur and eat grasshoppers and be tempted and tested and forged into something new. I find myself out there now – somewhere past the Jordan, praying, studying, reading, testing, and becoming….I am not sure quite what yet, but I like him better already. And I have learned the one thing all us desert-dwellers come to know – it was the Spirit that led us out here, and when we are ready, He will lead us back.
Who are we becoming? An amplified version of who we are now. If that is a disappointing thought, maybe it’s time to head out to dry places and start hacking away at those default settings. I’ll save you a rock.
