Last week, we focused on:
“Will you allow me to become…”
a different version of myself….
To allow old versions that are embarrassing or no longer accurate to slough away…
Can you know me better than anyone… including all my flaws and fears… and yet still encourage me to keep striving for that fresh, unblemished version of myself that I’m fighting to become?
This week, we are shifting perspectives and asking:
“Will I allow you to become?”
Those are not the same question.
The second one is much harder!
Because suddenly I’m the one being asked to loosen my grip.
Here’s the thing:
We all want grace…
until someone else’s growth inconveniences us.
That’s uncomfortable to admit.
We love the idea of redemption— when it’s our story.
We’re much more cautious when it’s someone else’s.
Why?
I don’t think it’s because we’re bad people.
I think it’s because someone else’s change threatens the emotional map we’ve built of our world.
Human beings crave predictability.
We don’t just love people…
We learn them.
We learn their reactions.
Their habits.
Their weaknesses.
Their strengths.
We know how conversations usually go.
We know what they’ll order at a restaurant.
We know which buttons not to push.
We know who they are.
Or at least…
we think we do.
Then one day they begin changing.
The recovering alcoholic says,
“I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
The quiet wife finds her voice.
The workaholic father retires and wants to learn to paint.
The adult child stops needing our advice.
The anxious friend becomes confident.
The people-pleaser begins saying no.
And suddenly…
our map no longer matches the territory.
That feels disorienting.
Not because their change is wrong…
but because our certainty has been taken away.
I also think there’s another emotion underneath it that we rarely admit.
If you change…
What does that require of me?
That’s the scary part.
Because if you’ve become healthier…
I may have to become healthier, too.
If you’ve learned better boundaries…
I can’t keep benefiting from your lack of them.
If you’ve healed…
I can no longer define you by your wounds.
If you’ve forgiven…
I may have to face the ways I’ve stayed bitter.
Someone else’s growth has a funny way of exposing where we’ve stopped growing ourselves.
That’s uncomfortable.
Sometimes it’s easier to insist,
“People don’t really change.”
Than to accept that they have…and ask why we haven’t.
Then there’s fear. It might sound like:
“Maybe they’ll outgrow me.”
I think that fear is far more common than people realize.
Not just in marriage.
In Friendships.
With Parents.
In our Churches.
Even in workplaces.
When someone begins changing, the people around them often wonder,
“Will there still be room for me?”
It’s almost childlike.
“If you become someone new… will you still choose me?”
That’s a vulnerable question.
Sometimes we unconsciously resist another person’s growth because we’re afraid we’ll lose our place in their life.
Ironically…
trying to hold someone still is often the very thing that pushes them away.
Here’s another thought I haven’t shared before.
I think there are two very different ways to know someone.
One says,
“I know exactly who you are.”
The other says,
“I’m excited to keep discovering who you’re becoming.”
The first creates certainty. And, humans crave certainly!
But the second creates intimacy.
Those sound like the similar things.
They’re not.
Certainty says,
“I’ve finished reading your story.”
Intimacy says,
“I can’t wait for the next chapter.”
Consider the whole foundation of Built To Be A Butterfly.
Imagine if the caterpillar had people standing around saying,
“Stop pretending.
You’ll always crawl.
That’s who you’ve always been.
(And even worse) It’s what God created you to be!”
The cocoon would look ridiculous to anyone who only believed past evidence.
Transformation almost always looks unbelievable…
until it’s complete!
Maybe that’s why Scripture is filled with renamed people.
Abram became Abraham.
Sarai became Sarah.
Jacob became Israel.
Simon became Peter.
Saul became Paul.
God seemed strangely unwilling to let people remain known only by the evidence of who they’d been.
He kept introducing them according to who they were becoming.
What if…
that’s one of the ways we’re called to love each other?
Now— that said— my family of origin was terribly, irreparably fractured by the demons of mental illness, addiction and manipulation.
I have learned the hard way that not every claimed change is genuine.
Sometimes people say they’ve changed while continuing the same harmful behavior, under the guise of “change”.
So, Wisdom matters.
Trust is rebuilt over time.
Forgiveness doesn’t erase discernment!
But…
when genuine transformation is happening…
love should probably be the first to notice it.
Not the last.
Who in your life have you remembered so well that you’ve forgotten to notice who they’re becoming? Perhaps the greatest gift we can give the people we love isn’t holding on to who they were… but remaining curious about who God is still shaping them to be.
Is it the husband who has spent years trying to become gentler?
The adult daughter you’ve secretly continued mothering like she’s still sixteen?
The son who finally found his footing?
The friend who isn’t as fragile as she used to be?
Your parents… whose own hearts have softened with age?
We often think transformation is an individual act.
It isn’t.
Transformation is relational.
Every time one person changes, everyone who loves them is invited to change, too.
That’s why becoming is so beautiful.
And that’s also why it’s so costly.
Because God doesn’t only ask us to become new creations.
Sometimes He asks us to believe that someone else has become one, too.
And that may require its own kind of faith.
Until Next Time–
Keep Becoming!
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