“The Me I Want to Be”

I am 75 years old, still trying to figure out who/what I want to be when I grow up. Time is running out on that.

Fortunately, I found help in the book, The Me I Want to Be: Becoming God’s Best Version of You, by John Ortberg.

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The most important task of your life is not what you do,
but who you become.

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Only God knows your full potential,
and he is guiding you toward that best version of yourself all the time.
He has many tools and is never in a hurry.

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You are not your handiwork; your life is not your project.
Your life is God’s project.
God thought you up, and he knows what you were intended to be.

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God did not create you to be anybody else.
He pre-wired your temperament.
He determined your natural gifts and talents.
He made you to feel certain passions and desires.
He planned your body and mind.
Your uniqueness is God-designed.

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Even you can’t tell yourself how to change, because you didn’t create you.
To love someone is to desire and work toward
their becoming the best version of themselves.
The one person in all the universe who can do this perfectly for you is God.
He has no other agenda.
He has no unmet needs he is hoping you can help him with.
And he knows what the best version of you looks like.
He delighted in the idea of it, and he is already working on it.
The apostle Paul said,
“We know that in all things God works
for the good of those who love him.”
Which means God is at work every moment
to help you become his best version of you.

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God designed us to delight in our actual lives.
When I am growing toward the me I want to be,
I am being freed from the me I pretend to be.

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Becoming … Best version … God’s project … pre-planned and unique … God is at work … designing me for delight …

I don’t have to know who I am because God knows. How freeing! I am a work-in-progress, though, not finished yet. He is growing me, and His goal is the same as mine:

What I really want is to be fully alive inside.
What I really want is the inner freedom to live in love and joy.

It will happen. God has promised.