Photo by Bob Jenkin on Unsplash

This might sound dramatic, but I think it’s true. 

The world started falling apart the moment someone said, “I want to be like them.”

Hear me out. 

The problem of sin and brokenness starts — and continues — with God’s people to wanting to be something (or someone) other than what they are. 

It starts in the garden, with the serpent tempting Eve with the promise of being someone else. 

“You can be like God. You can know everything. Don’t settle for being reliant on him.” (Genesis 3:5) 

And Eve falls for it. So do I. I’m guessing there are times you’ve fallen for it, too. 

Another place where we see this problem (it’s all throughout scripture) is in Genesis 16. 

God has promised Abram that He will make him into a great nation. Sarai, Abram’s wife, doesn’t seem to be able to have children. She’s not happy with the situation she’s in — with the place God has her — so she comes up with a plan that will make her the mother she wants to be. She tells Abram to sleep with her maid servant, Hagar. He does and Hagar has a baby, Ishmael. 

Sarai gets even more jealous and things start to go south quick. And they keep going. By the time we get to 1 Samuel, people aren’t even disguising the fact that they don’t want to be who they were created to be. 

“Give us a king,” the Israelites, God’s chosen people, say. “We want to be like all the other nations.” (1 Samuel 8:19-20)

As I read that passage, something clicked deep inside me, and I had to stop and sit with the feeling for a moment. 

How many times have I wanted to be like “them”? To be someone other than I was created to be? To be in a place other than the one God had placed me at that specific time?

Way more than I can even begin to count. 

But what if, instead of looking for ways to fit in, I let God allow me to stand out in whatever ways He wants? 

Living that way is counter-cultural, especially in our media and marketing-driven society. 

Many of the messages that bombard us every day are crafted to tell us that not only can we be someone else, but we should be. And if we don’t want to, there’s something wrong with us. 

Don’t get me wrong. Dreams and aspirations aren’t bad, but where those dreams and aspirations come from matters. 

Often, the root is that we want to live a life other than the one we have. 

We want to look different than how God hand-crafted us. 

We want to be someone other than who we were created to be. 

And that’s the real tragedy, because what if you already are who you were meant to be? 

I believe with every part of me that God has a unique call for your life. You reflect Him in a way no one else can. Are you leaning into that? 

God isn’t cruel. In fact, He often gives us what we want. But what if, instead of wanting to be like someone else — or everyone else — you wanted to be more fully you? The unique, beautiful one-of-a-kind you that you were created to be?

What if we all did?