When I grow up...

Remember the days when you were a chlid and you would dream about growing up. You would think to yourself, when I grow up I want to be a fireman or a doctor, or for the females an actress or the high princess of the world. What ever it was we all had that desire to be someone when we got older. Looking back now did you become that grown-up or are you some place you'd never thought you would be? For me I can't remember exactly what or who I dreamed about becoming. Growing up around sports I know I had the dreams of being an athelete but once I got to high school reality set in on those dreams. Too short to play basketball and not skilled enough for my high school coaches to help me play college soccer my dreams were quickly dashed. (Of course the atheletic desire still burns within me and that's why I relished my flag football days in college and play basketball with such intensity at the YMCA these days or even why I try to push myself so hard when mountain biking, but that's a different story than what I want to write about.)

So in the past few years I had been wondering, first, how I got here and secondly, is this what I am meant to do. How I got here is easy, after the atheletic dreams were scrapped I choose the next best thing in my mind and that was to following my dad into some sort of medical field. Thus going in to Wake Forest I had the pre-med course load and the thought I could do it. Boy was I wrong. Taking more credits than I probably should have and not really ever being the best studier I got some bad grades. Maybe it was because my heart wasn't truly into it or maybe it was a sign but those grades altered my dreams. With a stern warning from my mom to get my grades up, I quickly took what might have been the easy way out, I went into Computer Science. This new direction was interesting and I found I had the ability to do it. So now after almost ten years of professionally sitting behind a computer putting code to screen, is this what I am suppose to be doing? Some would say that having 5 different jobs and the past 4 years or so would be a sign that maybe this isn't what I should be doing. So with the question lingering, I decided to look to the future and decide where my current career path will take me in 5, 10 years. There seemed to be a couple of option but neither made my heart burn with desire. So the question still hangs out there.

What should I be doing? On one hand I am in a profession that I am pretty good at (evident by the fact that I am seemingly able to get a job if I want or when needed), and on the other I wonder if I have the desire to really keep doing this. Hand in hand with these questions I also find myself thinking, am I making an impact here, can I be making more of an impact somewhere else? It then comes down to, is this where God wants me to be? When I ponder that question I invariably think that for me to be more impactful for the Lord I should be somewhere else. There are endless options to be at the forefront of God's work. I look at the Briggs who are missionaries, I look at the Whites who help run a Christian camp, or even those who work at non-profits helping the community. Is this where I should be instead? I haven't been able to figure this one out yet. All I can point to now is that where I ended up at this moment in my life is only due to God making it so. I've realized that. I've realized that God has nudged my life onto this path. But that still has me thinking even though He led me here, is this truly where I will be best serving Him? Or is this a way to challenge me to truly seek his desire?

Like I said before I haven't figured out God's motive and plan for me, but I can say that the question has changed drastically from when I was a kid. Back then it was, what do you want to be when you grow up, but now it is what does God want me to be. I have a feeling I'll still struggle internally to be defined by what I do rather than be defined by who I serve, but I think I'm on the right path to looking at the question now.

So, what do you want to be when you grow up?