Dear Reader,
This morning I received a simple quotation by Thích Nhất Hạnh:
“Your purpose is to be yourself. You don't have to run anywhere to become someone else. You are wonderful just as you are.”
I find myself returning to those words even now.
There is something comforting in the thought that I do not have to spend my life trying to become somebody else.
Yet, from a spiritual perspective, I believe there is another dimension to consider.
Being ourselves does not necessarily mean remaining exactly as we are.
In my life I find there are still things within me that need healing. There are attitudes that need changing, fears that need releasing, habits that need surrendering, and wounds from the past that still influence how I see myself and the world around me.
This insight calls me to continue forward on the spiritual journey—not rejecting who I am today, but also not believing that who I am today is all God intends me to become.
My recovery and my continuing faith in Jesus Christ have taught me that the journey is not founded on rejecting myself or trying to become someone I am not. It is founded on surrender: allowing God to work with the person I am and lead me toward the person He knows I can become.
God does not ask me to become someone else. He asks me to surrender enough for Him to reveal who He created me to become.
There is an important difference.
For years I compared my insides with another person’s outside—their appearance, their clothes, their seemingly carefree way of living, and the successes others appeared to recognize in them. At times, these brothers and sisters even seemed more spiritual than I was.
Without realizing it, comparison kept me from discovering who I was and recognizing the potential God had already placed within me.
I believe my pre-recovery self-image was sustainable only through alcohol and drugs. Liquor and chemicals became a counterfeit rod and staff. They supported the illusion that I was equal to—or even better than—everyone around me.
But God did not create me to become someone else. Through His grace, He is helping me become the person I am still becoming today.
As the Apostle Paul wrote: “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” —1 Corinthians 15:10
Paul’s words are significant because he did not say simply, I am what I am. He added: “By the grace of God.”
Grace was involved. Transformation was involved. God was involved.
Paul remained Paul, but he was not the same man he had always been.
His encounter with Christ did not erase his personality, intelligence, courage, determination, or passion. Instead, those qualities were redirected toward a different purpose.
The man who had once persecuted the followers of Christ eventually became one of Christianity’s greatest witnesses.
God did not replace Paul with another person. He transformed Paul into the person Paul had been capable of becoming through grace.
I bear witness that the same principle applies to all of us today.
In Ephesians we read: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” —Ephesians 2:10
Workmanship suggests something being shaped and formed by the craftsmanship of our Creator.
It reminds me that my life is not merely a self-improvement project. I am more like a structure continually being restored by the original Architect—God—working through His grace, the principles of recovery, and the people of faith He has placed along my path.
I am already God’s creation. Yet I am also unfinished.
Thomas Merton expressed this spiritual truth beautifully when he wrote, “For me to be a saint means to be myself.”
St. Francis de Sales offered similar counsel: “Be who you are and be that well.” He also wrote, “Let us be what God wants us to be, provided we are His.”
Here I recognize a balance between accepting what I am and surrendering what keeps me from becoming what God would have me be.
God accepts us where we are, but His love does not leave us imprisoned there. He invites us forward. He sees our worth, even when we have difficulty seeing it ourselves. He sees the possibility of a life no longer governed by old resentments, but informed by the wisdom those experiences have taught us. He teaches us when to surrender, when to accept, and how to take responsibility for our own errors without assuming responsibility for the errors of another.
Most importantly, He sees our worth long before we finally learn to see it ourselves.
We simply need enough faith to place our lives in God’s hands and allow Him to continue His work.
I offer a simple prayer:
“Lord, help me stop trying to become someone else.
Help me surrender what keeps me from You.
Remove what is false, strengthen what is good, heal what has been wounded, and reveal within me the person You created me to become.
Not my will, but Thy will be done in me.”
🙏 🧘♂️ 💕 🤗 ☮️
