For graduates of all kinds, the question they have been asked since toddlerhood—”what do you want to be when you grow up?”—rears its head with a new sort of pressure.  Ironically, as one gets closer to initiating that choice with a first job, the question can seem more than a little misleading. There was a time when choosing a career seemed much like choosing a point on a map. Logically, it followed that the shortest distance between this point and our current locale was a straight line. But somewhere between the geometry that taught us this and job interviews, however, most of us discover that the choice is hardly an end point, nor the distance as direct as the crow flies.  Winding roads and unlikely encounters later, we find ourselves with roles we might never have been able to articulate in the first place.

In the world of spiritual expression and character description, similar assumptions are often made. We look at the apostle Paul or young Timothy, Saint Augustine, mother Theresa, Oscar Romero, or Martin Luther King—people who are remembered for their faithful characters, uncompromising love for Christ, or brave and bold faith—and we think of their faithfulness as a point on a map, a distance that might be reached with certain steps. Of course, many of us imagine these steps as nearly impossible, far too lofty as goals for our own lives. But we see their spirituality nonetheless as a choice: missionary, martyr, saint, apostle. We see in their faith a location that is reached with standard steps and directions, a straight path to a determined place.

There is a sense that this is true, that the greatest saints who lived the most beautiful lives for God indeed sought that faithfulness and followed a particular way to their rich spirituality. The Sermon on the Mount is full of direct and bold expressions of the spirit of the one who invites the world to follow. Jesus was entirely unambiguous about the qualities of a disciple that make him or her blessed:  “Blessed are the poor in spirit…4Blessed are those who mourn….5Blessed are the meek….B6lessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness….7Blessed are the merciful8….Blessed are the pure in heart….9Blessed are the peacemakers….1Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” (Matthew 5:3-10).  The most notable Christians in history indeed share many of these qualities.

But there is something quite misguided about seeing these spiritual qualities as particular destinations with straight roads between you and an estimated time of arrival. In our land of instant access, easy connections, and incessant “ten steps” to better a you, the danger is to think of spirituality as we might a career choice, to think of it as a destination in the first place, and at that a destination with standard directions and a set path. In fact, Christian spirituality is not a destination to pursue, but a life lived; it is the life expressions of a relationship with the creator and redeemer of our lives.  Thus, Jesus concludes his list of beatitudes with, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely* on my account” (5:11). The connection between the shape of our lives and his own is quite clear.

Indeed, our sainthood is not a set destination to work toward, but a deepening of our own life with Christ as we become more like the one we follow. To be spiritual, then, is not to become “humble” or “joyful” or “courageous” or “pure in heart” but to become like Christ, and subsequently more like ourselves. United with him, who is the essence of these things, we are creatures who are continually discovering the likeness of God in our lives, discovering ourselves as we were always intended to be. This is not to say we are never tempted to wander in what Saint Augustine and Saint Bernard called the “the Land of Unlikeness”—to wander away from the likeness of God within us and deeper into the places of unlikeness.(1) But this is no more binding than a child’s decision to be a astronaut after he discovers a disdain for math. To make room in our lives for God is always an option at any stage in life, one that might open us up to new depths of identity—both Christ’s and our own. On the occasion of graduations and opportunities to ask “what do you want to be when you grow up?” this is encouraging news for all.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) As cited in Jon Sweeney, The Lure of Saints (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006), 203.