Becoming vs. Fulfilling

I regretted what I said immediately. The words came out of my mouth, and I could never take them back. What I said was hurtful and would have lasting damage to the person I directed it to, one of the people I love the most. It’s been years since that incident, and it still haunts my thoughts regularly. I’ve spent countless hours asking God: How I can become the person you want me to be?

As I continue to expand my horizons with learning through books and podcasts, one thing that has become clearer to me is that perceptions matter. In a podcast I recently listened to, there was a study where they put green, red, and yellow stickers on grocery store products. Green stickers were applied to items that were healthy and red stickers were applied to items that were unhealthy. The yellow stickers they put on items they wanted the customer to think about before purchasing. The items with the green stickers had a significant increase in the number of purchases and the red items had a significant decrease in the number of purchases. People’s perceptions of those products changed their behaviors. Even the cliche: keep your expectations low, and you’ll never be disappointed, speaks to this principle that perceptions matter.

If perceptions matter, how can I leverage that to work for me? Let me go back to the question: How can I become the person God wants me to be? I don’t like the word “become” in this question. To become something sounds hard. It sounds like you have to make something out of nothing. Also, if I have to become someone, doesn’t that imply that God didn’t make me whole or finished in the first place? I hold fast to the belief that God makes masterpieces, and becoming something doesn’t sound like the work of a masterpiece.

Because perceptions matter, I’ve changed this question to: How can I fulfill who God has made me to be? I find the word fulfilling to be better on two levels. First, I perceive fulfilling something to be easier than creating something. In this context, it probably is mostly semantics, but the power of perception is important. Because I find fulfilling to be a path of lower resistance, I stay more energized and ready for what God has in store for me. Also, this addresses the issue of God somehow making me less than a masterpiece. He gave me gifts, talents, and shortcomings for a reason. Daily I try to fulfill the masterpiece God created with my choices, thoughts, and actions.

I recognize whether I am fulfilling or becoming the person God desires me to be, I need to surrender to God and follow His direction. There may be no difference in the actual work that goes into maturing myself as a Christian. However, I believe that perceptions matter, and if I find fulfilling who He created me to be is an easier path, then I will choose that. I will continue to mess up, but it’s not because I need to become something I’m not. It is because, at that moment, I didn’t fulfill who God created me to be.