Becoming Who God Wants Me To Be (pt 1)

I am who I am becoming. No this is not some philosophical, pie in the sky statement, it is an idea taken from the Apostle Paul in his writings to the church in Corinth:

Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it!
2 Corinthians 5:17 The Message

As a new creation I already am who I am, the goal now is to do the work of stripping away the old and letting the new shine forth.

I will admit that it is easy to strip away some of the old, those things that stare you in the face and you know are not honoring to our newly created life. I sometimes talk about this using an onion as my illustration. Take an onion and around the outside is the dried, papery layer that easily falls away. As you move in the layers of the onion become harder and harder to separate. As new creations we are able to put away some of our old habits that are not needed or wanted in our new life. These things are the outer layers of the onion. But then we get into the tough stuff. Those habits, actions, sins that we try to keep "hidden" in our new life. These aren't as easily reomoved. Let me make a point here, God can and at times does remove these hard, hidden things, but I believe that going thought this transformation process is what gives us the Godly character and wisdom that the world needs to not only hear from us but see lived out in our life.

For me this has not been an overnight, a ha moment. I have been a Christ-follower for close to 30 years. I have completed 2 post graduate degrees, a certificate and I am currently working on my Doctor of Ministy degree. Though all these years, through all this education, though all my life experiences this is what I have learned - God wants me to be someone who walks along side others as they do life, listen to their stories, offer advise when asked and help them move one step closer in their relationship with other but more importantly in their relationship with God.

This is getting a little long so tomorrow I will share with you how it is I got to the point where I could make the above statement with confidence and clarity. The question I leave you with today is "Who does God want you to become?"