Who are you? Even
more important, who do you want to be?
I have always
been the kind of person who believes that goals are important. If you do not have a goal for where you want
to go, you will spend your life aimlessly wandering. Goals don’t always have a time table, and
even if they do, they may always be a “work in progress”. The important thing is you keep striving to accomplish
them.
This is not
just true for things you want to accomplish, but also for who you are as a person. Have you ever thought about the person you
are now versus the person you want to be?
Have you ever really sat and looked at yourself, the good, the bad and
the ugly and evaluated where you are?
Have you thought, “I like this about me” or “I am proud of this”? And on the flip side have you looked for
places in your life that you see and think, “Ouch, that is not so pretty” or “I
need to do better in that area of my life”?
I like to take
survey of not just my life but of my self from time to time. I always start with the one who knows me
best, Jesus. I love the Message version
of Psalms 139:23-24.
“Investigate my life, O God, find out everything
about me;
Cross-examine
and test me, get a clear picture of what I am about;
See for
yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong-
then guide me on
the road to eternal life.”
We all have
messy lives. We all have baggage and
junk that has made us in to the people we are.
The thing is God never called us to sit in the ugly parts of those
things and use them as excuses. He has
called us to a new life (Romans 8:1-2), and he wants us to be free from all
that binds us and he never called us to be mastered by the hurt, pain or sin in
our lives (1 Corinthians 6:12). A matter
of fact, if we allow him, he will use the hurtful things in our lives to shape us
into a stronger person and for the good of our character, we only have to allow
him (Romans 8:28).
So, that leads
to my real thought for today…
Who are you? vs.
Who you want to be?
Are you easily
angered? Prone to lose control? Are you bitter or unforgiving? Do you find yourself falling into gossip easily? Are you negative? Are you compulsive? Are you dishonest or deceitful? Do you always jump to conclusions before
hearing the whole story? Are you moody
or mean? Are you overcritical or pessimistic? The list goes on and on. The thing is we all have at least one.
The real
question is what are we going to do about it?
I challenge you to search yourself.
Ask someone else? If you aren’t
spiritual, ask someone close to you. Be
ready to hear the truth. Be ready to do
some real soul searching as see what it is in you that you aren’t proud of,
what character trait pops out that you later wish had stayed hidden deep
inside. Set a goal. Set a goal to change “that thing”. If we all took a little time and picked one
thing to work on within ourselves, think how much nicer the world would be. When you master “that thing”, find
another. Strive to not only set life
goals, but personality goals as well. Be
a person you can look at in the mirror, even on stressful days and say, “Hey I
am pretty proud of you!”
