The question we should take to God in prayer then, is not so much what He may want us to do with our life, but rather who He wants us to become through our life.
To Be, Or Not to Be
Socrates famously said: The Unexamined Life is not Worth Living.
As Christians, we should be willing to examine our lives and wrestle with the question:
What is God asking me to do with my life?
If you have asked yourself this question, you are in a good place. This is an important subject for reflection in our prayer time.
However, there is a more important question we should consider, one that affects us personally and seeks to understand the purpose for which God created us.
That question is:
Who am I supposed to be in Christ?
Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.
– 2 Corinthians 5:17
When we encounter Christ on a personal level — something we do most often in prayer, we are fundamentally changed. We will never be the same after Christ enters our life.
Our lives are about much more than what we do. Life is fundamentally about who we are, or, more accurately, who we are becoming.
…and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
– Colossians 3:10
The degree to which we allow God to renew us and make us into His image, is the degree to which we fulfill His will for our life. It is also the degree to which life will reward us with the fullness of peace, joy and a sense of purpose.
The Lord has made everything for its purpose,
– Proverbs 16:4
even the wicked for the day of trouble.
It is important to keep in mind that we are not all supposed to be the same in Christ. We are not merely spiritual carbon copies of one another.
(This analogy might be lost on those who were never exposed to carbon copy machines)
It is true that we are all made in God’s image and that Christ dwells in us. But our individual transformation in Christ is not about our being consumed into Christ, as though we cease to exist. Our life in Christ is about our communion with Him, meaning we are still us, and Christ animates and inspires all our actions. In Christ we become the perfect version of ourself and we thereafter live our life directed by His Spirit.
God wants us to recognize that we each have a unique and individual role in His Kingdom. We are each called by God not so much to do something, but rather to become someone, someone God intended us to be, someone who can be raised to their full spiritual potential through God’s gift of grace. In God’s eyes, we are all one of a kind, and He has a plan for our life.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, then healers, helpers, administrators, speakers in various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts.
– 1 Corinthians 12:27-31
The question we should take to God in prayer then, is not so much what He may want us to do with our life, but rather who He wants us to become through our life.
What we do in life, while still in our body – our actions and our works, will have their eternal reward (or punishment).
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body.
– 2 Corinthian 5:10
But what we allow ourselves to become in life is what will live on into eternity.
By framing our prayerful To Be question to God in this way, we place the proper emphasis on the main actor in this process. For we do not make ourselves.
…for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
– Philippians 2:13
And we should take heart, God wants to complete His work.
And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
– Philippians 1:6
God Bless
Article Copyright © Deacon Mark Danis
Image credit: “Saint Jerome Writing” (detail) | Caravaggio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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