I always cringe when I hear someone tell a young person they can be whatever they want if they put their mind to it. 

You may not be made for it

Let me just give it to you straight: You can’t be whatever you want. You may not be tall enough to play in the NBA, or have the ear to be a concert pianist, or smart enough to get into medical school. It doesn’t matter how hard you try.

Form follows function—that is true of buildings, and it is true of people. We are all hard-wired differently. This is not just an issue of diversity, it’s an issue of aptitude. So, even if you can do that thing you were not made to do, you still struggle to do it well.

You may already know this by experience. You got into a job because it was what was available when you got out of school. That led to another job, and then you moved into another role. Try as you might, you just don’t excel. It seems easier for those around you. It takes them less time, and they do it with fewer mistakes. For you it’s just a grind.

Take someone hard-wired to be an artist and make them a civil engineer or someone hardwired to be a computer programmer and make them a trial attorney. They may get good enough to keep their job, but they are unlikely to thrive and less likely to excel. You will never be as fulfilled doing what you want to do as you will doing what you were created to do. 

You were made for something

And that leads to the other thing that’s wrong with telling people they can be whatever they want to be—it suggests they should decide what they want rather than what God wants. Obedience is not just about avoiding sin. It’s about carrying out that work God has given each of us to accomplish during our time on the earth. 

Here is how Paul explained it to the Corinthians:

“Only, as the Lord has assigned to each one, as God has called each, in this manner let him walk. And so I direct in all the churches.” — I Corinthians 7:17 

God has a work assignment for each of us. He then calls us to that work. Our responsibility is to respond to that call and complete that assignment. 

Understanding this calling process was so fundamental to the Christian life that Paul gave the same direction “in all the churches.” It’s for all the churches because it’s for all people. Everyone has a calling, assigned by God, which they are to walk in.

If you were not created to do certain things it’s because you were created to do others. 

So, here is the question: Are you doing what you were created to do? GS