Dear Children, You Can Be Something Even Better Than Anything You Want To Be

My Dearest Children,

I need to tell you something that may be a little startling, given that it's probably in direct contrast to what you've heard most of your lives.

You cannot be anything you want to be.

I know: you've always heard that you can be. You've heard you can be anything you want to be, so long as you put your mind and effort to it.

But the truth is, you can't.

Hold on, my loves, though, because before you nominate me for Mom Unmotivational Speaker of the Year, I have even better news for you. The best news, really.

You can be something even better than anything you want to be. You can be anything God wants you to be.

My darlings, you were made on purpose, for a purpose. You are not a fluke or accident or coincidence. You are the direct result of a thought in the mind of the Creator of the universe, and He only ever has good ideas.

God can do anything He wants. (See, "sovereign.") You can do anything He wants. (In fact, doing what God wants is always a very good idea.)

But because you are, at the moment, living in an imperfect world in an imperfect—if mind-blowingly complex and intricate and flat-out fabulous—body, there are going to be some things you might want to do that you can't do. Things your particular body and/or brain are just not equipped to do, no matter how much you want or work at it.

Your father, for instance, may have wanted to be an astronaut. (He didn't, but go ahead and humor my example here.) That may have been the "anything" he wanted to be. But his reading glasses, contact lenses, night glasses, and special telescopic driving glasses should tell you NASA would have had something else to say about that. Your father may have wanted to be an NBA basketball star. (Okay, he did want that.) But no matter how much he wanted that "anything" or how hard he worked or sacrificed, he was never going to have the innate ability to make that wanting a having or a doing.

On the other hand, he may have wanted to become an attorney. His impaired vision might have made that harder. But your grandfather seemed to be speaking the mind of God when he told your dad, "I think you'd make a good lawyer," because your dad is, in fact, that very "anything."

You may want to be "anything." But God has made you to be something. Something specific. Something special. Something only you can be.

"I know the plans I have for you,” God says. And, great news: they are "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV).

You have dreams, longings, wishes, and hopes for yourself—and those are cause for anticipation and celebration. But God has plans—concrete, defined, certain intentions—for you that are forward-facing and always and only for your good. And because He is an intentional, complete God, if He's planned it for you, He's planned you for it. He's loaded you with the mental, physical, and emotional capacity to make that longing into a reality in your life.

You may very well want to be "anything," but it might not be an "anything" God wants you to be. God had an idea that might be a hard thing to wrap your mind around, so He went ahead and addressed it in His great love letter to you.

"My thoughts," says the Lord, "are not like yours, and my ways are different from yours. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways and thoughts above yours" (Isaiah 55:8,9 GNT).

I want you to aim high, my loves. But know that God is aiming higher.

The fact is that you cannot be anything you want to be in the "wanting" of your own nature. But when you pull and tug and wrestle and s-t-r-e-t-c-h your own will for yourself so it lines up with God's will for you, this fact is freeing, not limiting! This reality does not deprive you of possibilities; it delivers you to probabilities. It does not close doors; it shows you which ones you can open, with hard work and diligence and determination and hard work and passion and study and practice and hard work and are we seeing a theme here?

When the road to being anything God wants you to be grows long and steep and rocky, remember that what God starts, He finishes. What He allows you to start, He will equip you to finish.

"There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. It's not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality" (Philippians 1:6, 7 MSG).

So, no, you cannot be anything you want to be, my darlings. But you can be anything God wants you to be. 

That makes all the difference in the world. And that's how you will make all difference in the world.

With hope and love,
Mom