When I Grow Up...

Most of you who know me well, know that I want to be a lot of people when I grow up. That's right, not things... people. When I was little, I wanted to be a lot of things: a teacher, an astronaut, a marine biologist, I even had a deep desire to be a waitress. I think it was a fascination with getting to wear a visor. What can I say, some dreams come true.

But these days, I want to be people when I grow up - Amy Carmichael, Beverly my cubical neighbor at work (affectionately referred to as my 69 year old best friend and powerful intercessor), Ruth the Moabitess, Elizabeth Elliot, Jackie Pullenger, and Nancy the beautiful woman of wisdom who leads the watch right before mine in the mornings, here in Jerusalem. These women are those of godly character, feminine grace, and heroic love. The could all be gal pals with the Proverbs 31 woman and have all become a shining example to this 20 year old one. Whenever I meet a woman like this, who is living a life devoted to Christ and is passionately in love with Him, I normally respond with "I want to be her when I grow up!"

Today, we have built a 21st century church to fit into our 21st century world. We are hip - we have coffee shops in our churches and our churches in coffee shops. The worship music is "relevant" and the media department is cutting edge. We look cool and manage to make Jesus pretty cool too. Now, all this in and of itself is not bad. But there is a grave danger waiting just around the corner... In our efforts to make to church culturally relevant to the younger generation, we have lost the older one. Our culture is constantly dividing us on generational lines. There are senior discounts and child discounts. There's "grown-up" movies and kids movies. And now, in the church, we have "youth services" and "adult services" - where parents' and kids' only Sunday morning interaction is the car ride to and from church. Separate worship, separate messages, separate lives. Or the even more extreme, whole youth churches, where there is not even the possibility of being forced to interact with "old people." How could a young person possibly be able to learn about Jesus with a faithful man or woman there who has known Him for 50 years?! Seriously?

We have lost respect for the older generation in the church today. We have separated ourselves from our potential mentors, shepherds and spiritual parents. We are consumed with the newest Christian fluff that hits the Christian bookstore shelves, and have never even heard of spiritual giants like Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, Hudson Taylor and Smith Wigglesworth - much less read a word they wrote. May we look to those bold forerunners who have paved the way for us with gratefulness and admiration. Not to mention the shining examples of faith we have in the Bible and the early church. But to discover these treasures, we would have to actually be reading our Bibles, which is another topic for another blog.

I look to these amazing men and women and desire to live the lives of faith they did - rescuing Indian children from human trafficking, introducing Jesus to those who have yet to know His great love, laying down my life in the service of others, pure devotion to the King and becoming a warrior of intercession. That is what I want to be when I grow up. Now, I am almost 21 years old and many would debate that my time for dreaming of what I want to be when I grow up, is long past. But I hope that I will never stop desiring to do great things for Jesus. I want to walk in the well trodden path of the saints and I want to aspire to even more when I am well into my 70s and 80s. Moving from glory to glory, never relenting in abandoning my life to Him.

And so I keep dreaming. I continue to see the beautiful, virtuous work of Christ in those further on this life journey than I, and choose to follow their example. What do you want to be when you grow up?