I Am Becoming!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted everything to be perfect. My hair just right. My childhood ballet routines beautifully performed down to the last move. My high school backstroke technique flawless. Perfect A+ grades, never missing an assignment, not even considering doing anything to get a detention. Getting into the right colleges. Choosing the right career. Finding the perfect guy. Making the best of friends. Showing the world I’ve got it. You know, that it factor that everyone seems to want. But, in tear-filled frustration, I always seemed to come up short in comparison to the world’s standards. Not pretty enough. Not the star swimmer on the high school swim team. Not the valedictorian of my class. No handsome stud on my side. No group of BFFs I share all of my deepest, darkest secrets with. It’s like perfection just wouldn’t come—no matter how hard I tried.

And that’s when it hit me. I will never be perfect. I wasn’t created to reach perfection. God created me exactly as He wants me to be—and in His eyes, I am perfectly made. Psalm 139 confirms that. He created me to love and embrace this grand adventure called life; the problem was—and is—that when I was striving so hard to reach what I deemed as “perfection,” I couldn’t truly live.

“Look at what I’ve done for you today: I’ve placed in front of you Life and Good, Death and Evil. And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16, the Message)

I want that. I want to live free of the distractions of wanting to win popularity contests. Free from fighting so hard to be perfect. Free from avoiding messy, real, authentic relationships. Free from being so afraid of getting hurt. Free from trying to avoid failure so intensely. Free from striving to win the approval of others. Free from the icy grip of shame. Free. Free to LIVE.

Each of us are on a journey. Our stories are being written day-by-day, inviting us to become who God made us to be, and I believe our stories have the potential to really do something, to change the world. But only if we let them.

It boils down to one thing: who will I trust to write my story? Me or God? Perfection screams, “Choose me! Choose me! Only I can control how everything turns out.” But the kind of living Deuteronomy 30 shares whispers the truth, “Choose God. He IS life. If you choose Him, you choose life.” When I choose to open my hands and release my grip on false control, I’m no longer striving to “do” anything; I’m simply “being” in His presence, trusting Him to “do” for me that which only He can do.

Warrior friend, you are becoming, becoming who God made you to be. Each day a page of your story is being written into the threads of time and being woven into the very fabric of who you are. As you stand looking at the pages before you, will you make the daily decision to choose to embrace this grand adventure called life, and to trust the God who created you in the first place to continue writing the story of you?

Respond:

Have you ever wrestled with the pressure of perfection and comparison? How has this trapped you from becoming who God made you to be? What would it look like to embrace becoming you, walking in the freedom God designed you to be and experience? Spend time talking with God about who He designed you to be and asking Him to awaken you to your next steps becoming you.