What Do I Want To Be (when I grow up)?

   We hear that question all the time. When we are little, people will ask us that, and we answer with a fireman, a doctor, a policeman, a ball player or whatever has appealed to us at that age.

   When we are in school, especially as we go toward higher education, schools ask us to declare a major, a field of study that will lead us out into the world to be productive citizens.

   As we think about work, the question comes; what will make you happy and fulfilled? It is another way of saying, what do you want to be.

   I got a note last night from our grandson, just beginning his first year away at college. I can hear the happiness in the note as he tells about how his running is going, about the courses he is taking and the stuff he is learning, about the new friends he has made, and just in general how great his college experience is going so far. I can just picture him, going about the campus with a perpetual smile on his face. He is doing what he wants to be doing at this moment in time.

   Chambers talks today about having living water pouring out of our souls to be a river of blessing to someone else, or to a bunch of someone elses.

   We are all still growing up, and the question is still pertinent: what do I want to be when I grow up? The emphasis is on "I", and that emphasis is misplaced. For the believer, Jesus is the guide to the answer, but I must ask the right question:

   "What does God want me to be?"

   That is the place of joy and true fulfillment, for Sawyer in college and for me in retirement, and for all the others in between.