The Question

As I begin to enter into my senior year of college, a question has begun to come up, one that I thought I had just left behind, one that I already thought I had answered: “What do you want to do with your life?” And my answer continuously ends up being an unsure grumble of “um…well…I’d like to…” Blah, blah, blah. It seems that my answer sounds more and more unsure of itself the more I get asked this question. I have gone through so many moments over the past few years when I have felt so certain of the path before me, and time and time again, God has come and flipped the script. It seems to me that instead of me driving the car of my life, like I thought I was going to be, I am simply in the passenger seat, along for the ride. Sometimes I even get strapped into the booster seat in the back; it’s harder for me to reach over and try to grab the wheel that way. When I do that, the ride gets a little too dangerous anyway, and no one likes a backseat driver.

I have been wrestling with this question of vocation, and I will probably continue to wrestle with it for the rest of my life. As I grow and change as a person, so will my vocation, God-willing, but that’s beside the point. Isn’t it? The more I think about it, the more I realize that I have been asking the wrong question. It’s not “What do I want to do with my life?,” but instead, “Who do I want to be?”

We all want to be a part of something that lasts. We want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Many go in search of finding big, meaningful jobs. Some go in search of jobs that align with their passions. Some go and pursue their dreams. These things are great. In fact, they are probably things that God is calling you to do, but you know what else He is calling you to do? He is calling you to not only do good, but be good.

I am a firm believer in learning from history, and by firm believer, I actually mean avid history fanatic. I watch documentaries, I listen to podcasts, and yes, you guessed it, “Hamilton” is my jam. Through history lives and stories are preserved through the ages. In school, we learn and study what people did. I have spent countless hours learning and studying and memorizing historical figures. We learn about what people did all of the time. In all of my studying, do you know what always sticks with me the most? It’s not what people did, but who they were that I always remember. I remember who was good and who was evil. Monuments are built after those good people. Today, we revere those who loved well. Take Abraham Lincoln for example. He was a man who fought, not just to do great things, but to pursue peace, equality, justice, and ultimately love, and he gave his life for this fight. We know Lincoln and his story. Today, we revere him as a great man. You know who we never hear about? The man who followed him in office, our 17^th president, Andrew Johnson. Johnson actually did not last too long in office. His only real legacy is the fact that he was the first U.S. president to be impeached. That’s right. He was impeached for violating the Constitution. On top of that, he attempted to move the country backward, trying to undo the work that Lincoln had given his life for. Johnson campaigned against African American rights and equality, vetoing the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill. Obviously, he was not one of "the good one's" for lack of a better term.

How is it that we can spend so much time reviewing one great man’s achievements while his successor we pay no mind to at all? I think it’s all about legacy. It is who you are as a person, in character, that people will remember. Two men with the same job during the same time. One we tell our children about, and the other we erase from our memory. It’s not about what you do; it’s about who you are.

What does it mean to be good? The Bible says that God has made us righteous. We are clean, good in his sight. This does not mean that we are off the hook though. Being good is something we get to choose. It’s called pursuing holiness, and holiness simply means to be set apart. Every day, you get to wake up and choose to do better, to be better, than the day before. We can see what good looks like when we open up the Bible. The only one who is truly good is God, and so, the more that we learn who He is, the more we can learn what good looks like, and the better we can leave a lasting legacy.

So, friends, instead of asking you what you are going to do with your life, I’d like to leave you with one simple question:

“Who are you going to be?”