"Don't change a diaper while wearing a neck-tie."
"Don't follow your heart, follow God's heart."
As my kids get older, I can't help but think about what they are going to do with their lives. At ages 6, 12 and 16, they are already amazing people: Creative, thoughtful, curious, hard-working, so very funny, and each with their own unique passion for Jesus. I am in constant amazement, and frequently say to myself, "These girls are going to change the world."
So how do you go about giving direction to these potential world-changers? "Go ahead ladies, change the world!" It's a little too broad, isn't it? As a young boy and up until I graduated from college, I remember the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Wide eyes and shoulder shrug was usually my response. "Well, you can be anything you want to be!" was then given back to me and meant to be encouragement. However, it felt like a millstone around my neck. "Anything I want to be." A little more specifics would have been nice! (Here I am, complaining that all this encouragement wasn't specific enough, I know, I'm terrible) But I was never able to have any vision for what I wanted to be when I grew up, and as a result, I never really moved towards anything. It was like standing in the condiment aisle of the grocery store with too many choices, trying to find the perfect pickle. I ended up just walking away without making any choices. And here I am, at 40, managing a Pizza place. On the surface, this might seem like a disappointment. If you would have told the 18 year old boy who could do anything that in 20 years he would be making pizzas for a living, he would have collapsed in a sobbing heap, never to recover. However, the reality is that I am so grateful to be where I am. I have purpose, satisfaction and growth in the work I do and I get to be a part of something great and affect the lives of 100's of young people, who also don't know what they want to be when they grow up. Some people know from a young age that they want to be doctors, lawyers, teachers, mothers, or park rangers, etc. Those people are able to move towards their goals. Some of us don't have an end goal in mind. So what do we move toward?
"Don't follow your heart, follow God's heart." Was something my wife told our daughters. She wasn't trying to squash their dreams, or uninspire them. She was effectively communicating that their is something bigger at work in their lives. They should indeed follow their passion, but never at the cost of their faith or passion for Jesus. If we trust that he is a good and loving father, then we can trust that no matter where we end up, it is for his glory. His glory. That is the tough part for any of us to swallow. His glory, not our own. From a secular point of view this sounds like nonsense. "Follow your own dreams!" "Seek whatever makes you happy!" is what the world tells my children. It even seems benevolent, who doesn't want their own children to be happy? However this is a severe miscalculation of how the world was intended and how we ourselves are built. There are 1000's of stories everyday of people that got everything they wanted, the glory and the fame, and yet were completely empty inside.
Matthew 16 25 For whoever wants to save their life[f] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?
"God has a plan for you!" That is sometimes an encouraging cliche, but most of the time it is a phrase that makes me want to poke my eyes out. "God has a plan!" fails to address the very root of our pain and our sin, "God's plan is different than my plan." My heart cries out, "I want it my way!" Thankfully, and unfortunately a little later in life, I began to see that my plan was crappy. Having it my way was no good for anyone, not my wife or my family and certainly not me. When I say that I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, well, that's not entirely true. I really wanted to be a Stand-Up comedian. At one point I even put some effort into it. I even got enough of a response that I could have pursued it. I even have reason to believe that I could have had some level of success. But then what, and at what cost? I surely would have lost everything for my own glory. I begrudged being a restaurant manager for so long. And in my early 30's when I finally came to understand who Jesus was, I then begrudged him for making me be a restaurant manager. I began to make my own plan out. Slowly, because I am dim-witted, I have come to see that just because I wasn't following Jesus, doesn't mean he wasn't involved in my life, shaping it. Is it Jesus' dream for me to be a restaurant manager? It probably doesn't work that way, my status is pretty irrelevant. But does he have me right where he wants me? Abso-freaking-lutely. Understanding that God is at work and that there is the greater work of his Kingdom to do, has meant absolute freedom. It sounds a little contradictory, but it is true. Seeking his will first, has allowed me to fearlessly seek things I am passionate about. And because I have sought him first in things I can trust the results of what has happened, be it pain or joy, triumph or rejection.
So here we are, still unresolved with what to tell these world-changers, who have unlimited potential to be whatever they want to be.
Here is some practicality:
If you know what you want to be, you should do things that move toward that end.
If you don't know what you want to be, you should move toward something that you are passionate about, whatever that may be.
Either way, you are stepping out in faith and either way you will indeed take you somewhere. And because our God is sovereign, you will be exactly where he wants you to be.
My prayer is that my children with seek him first, and then pursue their passion with reckless abandon, trusting that no matter what they do, it will be for God's Glory. When he gets the Glory he is due, we get Joy! How exactly will my girls change the world? I don't know. My world has already been shaken to rubble and then rebuilt on the promises of Christ. My children were a part of that, whether they realize it or not. God is at work, redeeming his people one at a time. And this is how it will happen for my girls: they will change the world one person at a time.
As for the other piece of advise, "Don't change a diaper while wearing a neck-tie." It is just a reminder that some nuggets of wisdom have to be lived for the fullness of their truth to be made real.
Romans 8: 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose.
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