Who I Want To Be When I Grow Up

This week, the 2024 Olympics will launch in Paris.  I love watching the athletes.  But even more, I love hearing their stories.  So many of them remember seeing the Olympics as a child and saying, "I want to be an Olympian."  That desire was awakened in them.

And then they set about to be one. 

The idea didn't make it happen, but instead, years and years of determined practice.  These athletes were focused not on winning, but on persevering.  It was no longer accomplishment that drove them.  It was not the huge championships that changed them, but their daily practice. 

Through sweat and effort and training, they learned:  Do not despise the day of small things.  Zechariah 4. 10   Because there are no insignificant choices, nor ordinary days.  What we choose and how we respond to circumstances alter our trajectory.  Our daily rhythms establish the patterns of our lives.

At the beginning of this year, my husband and I looked in the rear-view mirror and through the front windshield.  Instead of creating an elaborate bucket list of resolutions or goals -- what we want to do – we thought more about who we want to be.  We asked:  What do I want God to awaken in me this year? Who am I becoming?  What incremental investments do I need to make in myself for the now and the yet to come? We are now half-way through 2024.  How have we changed so far? 

What do I want to be when I grow up?   If I ever want things to be different, something has to change.  And that would not hinge on circumstances, but my heart.

In his captivating memoir Everything Sad is Untrue, author Daniel Nayeri talks about how his mom navigated their overwhelming hardships as refugees.  "But what you believe about the future will change how you live in the present.  That’s how she did it."

How do we view our future? Not what we want to do, but who we want to be when we grow up.  Who we want to be in the future is embedded in what we choose to be today. 

It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  Galatians 2. 20 

New York Times opinion writer, author, and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren views our choices as opportunities:  "... what practices might bridge the difference…. There is hope in the idea that we can change -- that we can keep growing, learning and trying new things."

We are not stuck.  We can change.

No matter that it is already the middle of the year, no matter how old we are, becoming is a moveable feast laid out whether in a palace or a barren wilderness.  God guides. God provides. God nourishes.  God’s feasts always leave baskets of leftovers.  Becoming has no expiration date.

None too late.  The new year starts every morning and is made up of ordinary days.  What incremental changes can I make today?  In what am I investing in these 24 hours? 

Not what I want to do, but who I want to be, is a long game surpassing far beyond this calendar year.  Think of it not as a finish line but the marathon itself.

And when we come to the end of this year, or the next, will we find we are different?  Will others recognize that we have been walking with Jesus?  By what will we be known?  Not by our accomplishments, but that we are His.

…the God to whom I belong and whom I worship.  Acts 27.23

It is never too late.  Not with resolutions or lists, but living intentionally, composing, practicing, and sowing something new right where God has placed us today, interacting with those He has put on our paths, and seeing how He is enlarging our hearts. Right here. Right now. 

In his beautiful piece The Singing Bowl, poet Malcolm Guite suggests:

 

Begin the song exactly where you are,

Remain within the world of which you’re made.

Call nothing common in the earth or air,

 

Accept it all and let it be for good.

Start with the very breath you breathe in now,

This moment’s pulse, this rhythm in your blood

 

And listen to it, ringing soft and low.

Stay with the music, words will come in time.

Slow down your breathing. Keep it deep and slow.

 

Become an open singing-bowl, whose chime

Is richness rising out of emptiness,

And timelessness resounding into time.

 

And when the heart is full of quietness

Begin the song exactly where you are.