When You Grow Up

It's a popular question for kids. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" You'll get fanciful answers like "fairy princess" or "ballerina" or serious answers like "policeman" or "fireman." Reasons will vary. "I want to be a doctor so I can save people." "I want to be a lawyer because they make a lot of money." No one really takes it seriously, and it's all well and good ... but ... it actually matters. I mean, what you're going to be is a direction you need to take and if you're going to be something, you need to head that direction. My daughter, in high school, said, "I want to be a marine biologist." Well, that's all well and good ... except she was failing most of her classes. She wasn't heading in the direction she wanted to go.

Want do you want to be when you grow up? Scripture says that God causes all things to work together for good for a particular purpose.

But we know that to the ones loving God all things work together for good, to those being called according to purpose; because whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, for Him to be the first-born among many brothers. (Rom 8:28-29)

The "good" for which all things work together is "to be conformed to the image of His Son." Plain and simple. Is that what you want to be when you grow up? Paul wrote, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him" (Eph 1:4). "In the image of His Son." "Holy and blameless." Is that what you want to be when you grow up?

Paul counted all things that he had formerly counted as gain as loss for the sake of the cross (Php 3:7). He wanted to know Christ and attain the resurrection (Php 3:8-11). And he said, "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" {Php 3:12-14). "Become perfect." Is that what you want to be when you grow up? If not, you might be misguided. If so, perhaps you should be pressing on toward the upward call. You know, head toward what you want to be.