Latest / BECOMING | Biblical Truths, Purpose, Identity in Christ, Grow Towards God / 1. Who are you Becoming?
Transcript
- Elly Nelly: Hi everyone, welcome to the Becoming Podcast. I'm your host, Ellie Nelly. this is our first episode here at Becoming, and I'm really excited for the journey that we're all gonna take together. So let's go ahead and jump on in. the question for today that I'm gonna pose to you is what kind of old person do you want to be? I think we all know grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, people who are older, they either seem to be the nicest person you've ever met or kind of not. because over the years of their lives, they get developed by the world, their life, their surroundings, their friends, their family, and they become someone. And I feel like if if you're being intentional, you can become someone amazing, someone who's God-centered. Someone who loves the Lord and loves their family and finds so much joy in life, or you can become someone who's cynical and sad and snarky and isolated and lonely and pushes other people away. So I personally want to be someone who loves their family, has so much joy in the Lord, and I think you do too, which is why we're here today. So, with that question being posed, the next step is what does that look like for you? How do you become a nice old person? Well, every day life throws so much at us. It just based off of our friends, our family, being at school, being on a sports team, going to work, driving a car. There's so many things that happen in our lives that we experience that we don't get a lot of control over. So, what do we have control over? But what steps can we take to make us closer to the Lord at 88 than we are right now? I asked some friends of mine, if you were as close to Jesus as you could be in this lifetime, what would that look like for you? What kind of a person would be would you be? What would you be characterized by? What would people say about you? How would people feel after they experience you? And each of their answers were vastly different, but honestly awe-inspiring for me because these are my younger friends. I'm asking them these questions and their answers were amazing. some shared that they would hope to be slow to anger, constantly in prayer with the Lord, going to Him first. Others shared that they would be confident and comfortable. Being alone and having the Lord and being completely dependent on Him, that people would look at their life and go, my gosh, she's just doing it, her and Jesus, and they're they're taking this world together. others said that they would be so dependent on the Lord that they wouldn't need other people to validate them, that they would know completely who they were made to be in Christ, and that they would love that person because God loves them first. Others said that they would be the person that's always kind, that they would always be a place to go when other people feel lost or in need, that they wanted to be the type of woman that was always kind. Nobody could say, I've ever heard her say a bad thing about anyone. No, she was just wanted to be the kind of person that would always spoke highly of other people and really encouraged others and lifted them up. And I thought all of these different women that they were hoping to become in Christ is amazing. I was really taken aback by how well thought out their answers were, given the fact that I asked them on the spot. So I took the time to ask that question of myself. If I was as close to Jesus as I could possibly be on this earth, what would I look like? How would I interact with other people? and I I thought through it and I journaled about it, and I decided I would want to be. The type of person who is hallmarked by the peace that I have in the Lord, that I would be like the woman in Proverbs 32 who laughs at the future because of her confidence in God, that she is completely unshaken by the whims and winds of this world. I would hope that I would be hospitable, that my home would have held many, many nights of laughter, many meals shared with friends. many friends taken in for a season and a time. I love hosting people and so I think if I was as close to Jesus as I could be and I didn't care about how messy my house was or what I had put together, I would hope that my home would constantly be full of people who needed to be loved and that I would answer that call and love those people as well as I could. I would hope that I would be slow to speak and slow to anger because I use my words flippantly. I've been realizing That I kind of feel convicted that I just talk sometimes just to say things. I think a lot of us feel this like awkward silence. At least I feel an awkward silence. I have a hard time letting awkward silences stand. And so I often just let words keep coming out way past their necessary usage. So I've been trying to be more careful about my words, thinking about is this gonna lift somebody else up? Is this encouraging? Am I reflecting Christ? Do I really need to say this? all of the those things. So I hope that my words would be impactful, filtered with the gift of discernment, and that I would be known as someone who is kind and encouraging with their words, not something else, not a gossip, not conceited, not looking to put myself up and put others down. I don't want that. So that's I don't think I would be that type of person. I would like to not be that type of person. and then the last thing that I think I would I would be if I was as close to Jesus as I could be would be someone who has uncontainable joy in every season and feels no guilt about having such an amazing joy in the Lord that is just undescribable by any means of anything this world could provide, no matter the season, that I would be someone. Who just has the joy of the Lord, and that the joy of the Lord would be my strength. And I am a joyful person and I am a happy person, but sometimes I get really sad and sometimes I get really anxious. And sometimes I feel guilty being so happy because other people are really struggling and I don't really know what to do with that. I'm still figuring out what to do with that, but that I would be someone who would be joyful. I would talk to God more than I talk to anybody else in my life. Person, not person, but that my inner thought life would just be one constant stream of prayers to the Lord, that I would be dependent on him, that I would be able to go to him, to lay my burdens down at his feet, say, my gosh, Lord, did you see the way so and so talked to me or whatever before I go to somebody else? That God would be my number one person, that I would always go to him first. And share about my day and my life and my thoughts and my concerns and my worries and my joys and my grocery lists just all of it that the Lord would be my person for everything first. And that's really hard because I married and my husband's that for me. I go to him with everything. I talk to him about all sorts of stuff that's happening at work and my social life and random things I see as I'm driving home. I tell him first and that's great and I love that. But I think Working hard to being like, hey, what does my husband really need to hear from me about? And what would be joyful to the Lord from him to hear me about that I can share with him too. So there's that. all of those things would be so, so great. And I would love to be that woman, and I want to be her so badly. And the sad fact of the matter is I'm not, I am not her. At all. I am so incredibly not her yet. I am anxious, not peaceful. I'm not hallmarked by my peace and my patience. I worry, I doubt, I fear. I do all of those things. I get overwhelmed to keep my house clean. How am I supposed to be hospitable if my house is literally a disaster right now? I'm looking around. It's a little it's a little messy. We're not having people over tonight because. It's just a mess, but I wish that wasn't the case and I'm not there yet. I worry that God's not seeing the hard parts of my life, the things that upset me. I'm worried that He's not seeing that and that He's not there in those moments. Even though I know He is up here in my mind, but in my heart, sometimes it's hard to feel like, God, are you seeing this? Are you hearing these things? Like, do something. But I know, I know he is, and I need to have confidence in that and I'm working on it, but I'm not there yet. I talk a lot to hear my own voice and not because it's what God wants me to say. Wish I had more discernment there. Wish I had more wisdom. I struggle with feeling guilty about my joy, even though it does come from the Lord, and to have confidence that he's given me a joyful spirit would be huge. And I would love that, and I would love to walk in that every single day, but I don't. I talk to God when I have complaints, but I don't talk to God when I have compliments. And that's something that I'm realizing is not good for my heart and not good for my relationship with the Lord is I go to him with this laundry list of to-dos and complaints, but I don't compliment him, I don't thank him, I don't praise him for all the things that he is actively doing in my life. I hyperfocus on This tiny little pebble that he's not moving when he's actually moving mountains in other areas of my life. and the last thing is I strain so hard to hear God's voice. I feel like I am screaming at him, but he is whispering at me. And I want so badly to hear it. And I want so badly to be the person that's like, I can hear like I heard from God or I'm getting this feeling from God. And I am few and far between when I can quiet everything else enough. But I am loud and this world is loud. And so for that reason, I struggle to hear from the Lord because I don't make time and I don't have great disciplines that help me do that. So that brings us to the biblical root of this, which is Proverbs 27.1. It says, do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. And I love this verse, not only because 27 is my favorite number, but I love this verse because so often I have the arrogance to assume that God owes me tomorrow. And he doesn't. And I think I have lots of important things I need to do. I have lots of important meetings and people I need to talk to. But the reality of it is if it's not surrendered to the Lord, it's not mine. It's never mine, especially when it's surrendered to the Lord. and so to assume that I have something called tomorrow is an assumption I should not be making. all that to say is let's work on these things today. Charles Spurgeon does a sermon on this. It's really good if you have the app, Blue Letter Bible, which is what I use. It's really good. It's like the Bible app, but it has text commentaries, it has sermons, it has the translations into Greek and Hebrew and Arabic, and it's awesome. It gives you just like the next level deep dive of the verse. So I was looking at this verse in Blue Letter Bible, and Charles Spurgeon. message popped up and so I read it and it's from 1856. That's a long time ago. But his words are still relevant today, so I thought I would share them. He says, such men spend so much time in building castles in the air that they have no stones left to build so much as a cottage on the ground. And I think we put all this investment and time into, well when I'm done with my sports season, well when I'm Get the job I want, when I'm on the team I want, when I'm past this class, when I'm past this test, when I'm done having drama with my friends, in the future, in tomorrow, we build all these grand plans in a landscape that isn't real. And then we wonder why we're so discontent with the way that things actually are. And it's because we're not building something realistic or tangible or meaningful in our lives here, now, in this moment. We're focusing on things in the future. And the Bible's pretty clear about the future. It says tomorrow is not promised and you don't know what the day may bring. And that's not to cause fear, but I think it's to stir our hearts to urgency in this matter to say, don't wait until tomorrow. Don't wait until six months from now. Don't wait until next year or your senior year or when you go off to college or when you're finishing college or when you get married or when you're starting your master's degree or when you have kids. Like if you're just waiting for that next life point. Is it really gonna be easier then? Kind of thinking's not gonna be. I think, at least from what I've learned, things were easier in the last phase than they are in this phase. And that isn't to mean this phase isn't good. It's just to mean that things always change and it's not usually in the ways that we can anticipate. so I would hate to be double my age now, which would be 48. I would hate to be 48 and to be still saying the same thing. tomorrow I'll work on being a woman of peace. Tomorrow I'll work on using my words wisely. Tomorrow I'll try to not be concerned about the joy I have. Like, my gosh, when I'm 48, I'm gonna have kids, I'm gonna have a mortgage, I'm gonna have so many other things going on in my life to wait until then to prioritize something that I should have and could have prioritized today. Seems rather foolish to me. So in the spirit of not being foolish, which maybe that's a me thing, I'm willing to say that maybe it's a me thing that it's just something that I want, but I Have a feeling you'll probably be interested in that too. So that's the point of this podcast is that we're moving in the right direction together. And maybe this is just for me. Maybe it's a way for the Lord to say, hey Ellie, sometimes you don't listen and you don't remember all the wonderful things I do for you. And so he's having me do this podcast so that. In October of 2027, I can look back and say, my gosh, Lord, you know what? You were so faithful to me. And I have an episode every week to remind me of all the ways you've been working in my life. maybe that's the case, I don't know. but maybe the Lord has something for you too. And I think his plans for this are a lot bigger than just me. Maybe they're not, and that's okay too. but I think they're a lot bigger than just me, and I think it includes you. And I want to challenge you to go the same direction with me. And it's not gonna be easy, but I hope that we can both look back in a year from now together and say, wow, look at who I'm becoming, actively becoming, becoming the person that I described last year. I'm taking steps, I've done Bible studies, I've gotten to know God more, I'm in his word, I reflect more of his character, and I hope that we're able to be excited because we've partnered with God to become more like him. And that's like the whole point of this shindig. The whole point of life is to become more like him. So before you turn on the TV or you look at other reels or you need to go run errands or go to school or shower or get out of your car, whatever you're doing, before you move on to your next thing, I would suggest that you spend some time with God and ask him if If I were as close to you as I could be on this earth, what would I look like? How would people experience me? What do you have for me? And how can I step into that fully? It's a hard question to ask. It's a big question to ask, but I think it's so, so important. That you ask God to share with you who He made you to be. And something to make a point of. I hope that your description looks different than mine and all of my friends because God made you so uniquely to be you for the things that you need to do. that and those things are different than mine, and those things are different than other people's. And it's not only okay, but it's really, really good. Because I don't think the world needs more of me, but the world sure as heck needs you. So I'm really excited for all of the places and spaces that he's gonna grow you into. For the next week in your Bible, I would encourage you to write down some of these things. So some things for me would be peace, patience, my words, joy, kindness, compassion, hospitality. Write down some of these words and do some research in the Word about verses and things that God has described and people who have lived compassionate lives, peaceful lives, hospitable lives, all of those things. And kind of build like a a vision board, a biblical vision board of what God has for you and who you're made to be. Because once I did this for myself, I got kind of excited, like, wow, she's cool. The person God made me to be. And I really want to be her. For my husband or my for my family, for my friends, for the people I work with, I want to be her. And I want to be her for me so that I can experience this closeness with God that I crave. and I think once you get excited about it, you're gonna want to keep Going because I want to keep going and learn more about who God made me to be. So if you have any questions, you need any advice, you look up a verse and you're like, my goodness, what the heck does this mean? you can reach out to me. I'm here all week. I'm here every day on social media. You can follow me at Becoming with Ellie Nelly or on TikTok, same handle. you can follow and subscribe. because I've got more stuff coming at you. And I think once you get excited about this, you're gonna want to see what the Lord has for you next. So if you have any questions, please reach out. And if you have anything you're really excited to share, reach out to. I would love to walk this path with you. And I am so excited for what the Lord has for you. So let me pray. dear Lord, thank you for my friend who's hearing this right now. Please help these words to have been honoring and glorifying to you. Please use them to root truth in her life. Thank you for who you made her to be, Lord. And I am so, so excited as she steps into becoming who you made her to be fully and that she owns it and that you have created her for something so special with so many people that she is yet to bless and meet and connect with. So I pray that you would open her eyes to that. and give her the same excitement that I do and just really share with her who she is and who you are in the process. we lift all these things up to you and we're excited for what you have for us next. Amen. Everyone's becoming someone. So who are you becoming? What do you think? Did I do it? It's twenty-one minutes.