Becoming You

Whatever you want me to be, I’ll be.

Wherever you want me to go, I’ll go.

Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.

It’s my desire to be……… Just what you want me to be.

It’s my desire, my desire. 

It’s my desire, to be……. Just what you want me to be.

 

Those were the words of a song I sang as a kid in Antioch Baptist Church’s youth choir in the 1970’s. Growing up, church songs were the only songs to which I knew all the words. Sometimes I would sing along with the radio to artists like, The Commodores, Teddy Pendergrass, Peabo Bryson, or Earth Wind and Fire, but I mimicked the words I didn’t know. Was it, “Love has found a way in my heart tonight, or “Love has a holiday in my heart tonight,” in Love’s Holiday by Earth Wind? Was Lionel Richie of the Commodores singing, “I’m easy like Sunday morning,” or, “I’m leaving next Sunday morning?” So when I auditioned as a young adult for a community theatre production of Dream Girls, my audition song was a gospel song from church. I don’t remember which song, but the mind is like that, we forget. So it is with our purpose, and who we are to become. I have a theory about that, one I can’t prove, but interesting to think about.

Before we were formed, God asked us, “What do you want to become?” And we replied, “I want to be_______.” Then God formed us with everything we would need to become ______. If we said, “a dancer,” God designed us with a dancer’s body and the love of music and movement. If we said, “a writer,” God formed us with the ability to see and recount details others miss. If we said, “an illustrator,” God fashioned us with abilities to draw, paint, and see shadows and lights in objects. However, when we went through the traumatic birthing process we forgot. We forgot what we asked God for, what we wanted to become; and we spend the rest of our lives trying to remember. “Whatever you want me to be, I’ll be,” are the lyrics of the song I sang as a child, but I could sing, “Whatever you designed me to be, I’ll become.”

We each have gifts, interests, talents, that we were designed with because we asked for them. Our Creator gave them to us to be used. We can deny we have them, we can put off following our dreams and using our gifts, but the yearning, the passion, the interest will never completely go away. It’s that thing you’ve been thinking about doing but haven’t because you tell yourself it’s not important or you don’t have the resources. It’s that thing you think about but you're too afraid of failing to try. It’s that thing others tell you you’re good at, that you’re a natural, but you don’t believe them because you think it’s too good to be true, that someone like you could ever do that. Lies! Those are all lies we tell ourselves because we believe life is hard, and we can’t mess it up by following our “insignificant” dreams, but that’s what we were designed to do, to become. What if our dreams are the remnants of our conversations with God before we were formed, the traces of who we asked to become? Our gifts, abilities, and dreams are not to be measured or compared with others. We each have been given, “super powers” to become _______, and you will seek them or they will follow you around like a magic cape seeking its rightful owner, like Dr. Strange’s cape in Benedict Cumberbatch’s movie DOCTOR STRANGE. As long as you’re living, you can do ______. As long as you have breath, you can become_______. It may look very different from how others do it, but it’s yours to do. Now fill in the blanks.

 

Whatever God has designed you to do, do.

Wherever God has designed you to go, go.

Whatever God has designed you to be, become.

It’s your desire, to be……. Just what God gave you to be!