Being, Belonging, and Becoming – Part 3

“That’s just the way I am.” – one of the saddest, laziest, and most faithless phrases that I ever hear

“Just be.” – spoken my many, followed by none

“I don’t belong anywhere.” – powerless when spoken as accusation or resignation, powerful when owned as a false perception or realization

I’ve written a couple of pieces already on being and on belonging.

As important as each of those are to me, I think that the idea of “becoming” is the one I spend most of my thought life on. Of the three, this idea contains and delivers the most hope (in me, and from me to others). It unlocks in a man the sleeping dreamer. It utilizes the most creativity, as well as the full arsenal of powers that God has given to mankind for his use. And even with that, it also depends on the power that God has reserved for Himself in order for a person to enter into it, let alone achieve it.

Becoming

One of the countless things that my teacher has said on this subject is that unless I change and become like a little child, I will not live in the ways of God.

I’ve spent some time dwelling on that. I respect my teacher a lot, and believe him to be brilliant, and often ponder his every word for meaning, value, and direction (I wonder if sometimes he laughs at me because I may “miss the forest for the trees”).

Now, I know the heart of my teacher, and so even though a glance at these words on paper can be interpreted as a warning and condemnation, I know him to be communicating a message of hope and desire and possibility. A message of life that he wants me to have.

With this teaching, he is telling me that I can change. He is also giving me the very good news that living in the ways of God is available to me. Not only that, but he is informing me that there are some qualities or characteristics, observable or inherent in a child, that he thinks necessary and good for me. On a side note, since I was a child once myself, this teaching proves to me that I am capable of change, since I now have lost these qualities and need them back.

I meet so many people who do not believe they can become something that they are now not. I meet another large set of people that believe they can become something else, but can not connect to the desire to do so, or a picture of what that should be, in a way that fuels them to enter it. Watching these folks makes me really tired.

Tired, because usually these folks want to talk the language of becoming, love the idea of becoming, want to be seen as people who are becoming, and even set aside time to be in community with others who are becoming, but never enter into the process of becoming themselves.

Why? Because becoming something other than you are, no matter how small the change, is nothing short of revolution.

And revolution, by definition, is the overthrowing of the old with the new.

And we, dear friends, for the most part, do not want to overthrow the old. Not really. It’s easy to focus on the negative of how we (or things) are when we have no intention of or belief that we will change. But, when our talk of revolution and becoming gets discussed as a real possibility, and the cliff from which we must jump is right before us, we all quickly realize the many perks that we enjoy from how we (or things), and we find out whether or not we really want to throw it all away for something new. 

Most do not. Including me, I sadly confess. But I am healing from this…and becoming.

It’s the work of my life, in me and offered to others. Let me just say that the “payoff of becoming” is so much sweeter than the “perks of the same”.

God help us all.

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Discipleship, The Best Life