By Tim Holler
I heard someone say the other day that God didn’t have to create us and the world. But I suspect that maybe He did. Maybe in the sense that it’s His nature to create. Like it’s the nature of birds to fly and fish to swim. And since we were made in God’s image, and He is creative in nature, therefore it’s in our nature to want more, to desire more, to create more.
We desire to reach higher, obtain greater, become something more than we are, or feel that we are, at any given moment.
I’ve struggled with this my whole life. The struggle was against the notion that I shouldn’t want more. Or that I couldn’t attain more because I was inadequate. In either case, the conclusion I drew was that being me was out of the question.
This drive to have more and to obtain something beyond what we have has driven men and women to a wide variety of endeavors and adventures. But the testimony of those who reach their stated goals is that they are not enough. They still feel empty.
But is it the drive that is the problem or is it the goal?
I’m convinced that the drive, the energy that makes us want more out of this life, is from God. But we are broken people raised by broken people in a broken world and we are either taught that we are wrong to want more or we are taught to want the wrong things or both.
But even in our brokenness, we can learn to become the self God intended us to become; honest, genuine, passionate, transparent, vulnerable. And each of us has our own uniqueness that only we can express. Thomas Merton said that only you can love people the way you can love people. You are uniquely situated in the world to do what only you were made to do.
I spent most of my life trying to be somebody else. As a young child, I did impersonations. I impersonated John Wayne, Jimmy Cagney, Jimmy Stewart, Jimmy Durante, even Tammy Wynett! I always got laughs.
But most importantly, I got attention and acceptance.
As I grew up, I found people around me who I looked up to and imitated them. Sometimes I’d be caught and called out for it. Embarrassed, I’d have to stop and find someone else. Even as a vocalist, I would sing songs as close as I could to the original performer. I could never find my own voice. That is probably the theme of my life.
I could never find my own voice.
I felt that the real me couldn’t be enough for others and therefore enough for myself, let alone God. It took taking the risk of sharing my true self with others over an extended period of time to find that being me was the much better option.
It took my own personal therapy.
It took humility, prayer, and faith.
Now there is no one on earth I’d rather be.