July 2025 Blog
Become the Person that God Created You to Be
Bishop Mark, Kathryn and Hennie
For we are God’s workmanship [work of art], created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).
The 14th June was my ordination as priest, which means that I can now preside at Holy Communion, as I continue as a curate. This gives me both joy and a sense of privilege as I know that this is a very special thing to be able to do, and nothing that I deserve from my own merits.
Something that I have felt along the journey is that God cannot really mean me! When I first thought that God was calling me, I told him that there are other Christians who are more dynamic and more suitable than me in other ways. However, God did not accept my self-doubt. He made it clear to me and to others that he was calling me into ministry.
There were other times along the way, when I simply did not feel that I was good enough. One Sunday evening straight after the worship service, God spoke to me, “I have called you by name…” (Isaiah 43.1) and “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). This confirmed that God was continuing to lead me along the windy path towards ministry, though I should add, that no one else had doubts!
As I came closer to priesting, I was worried again, that I did not quite fit into my perceived view of what or who a Church of England priest is. What God has been showing me, is that he created me as a unique individual in the image of himself. What he desires is that I become the person that he created me to be. It is not for me to worry that I am not like the other clergy that I know. I think that there is something special about inhabiting the space that you were created to be in. I have no misconceptions though, we are all a work in progress; to sin and say “well that’s the way that God made me” would be unjustified.
Let’s go into the Bible a little more.
As Ephesians 2 says (at the beginning), God made us. Tom Wright describes how God made us at the centre of his new creation. We are his workmanship, a masterpiece, like a sculpture, a poem or music. ‘We are like a musical score: and the music, which we now have to play, is the genuine way of being human, laid out before us in God’s gracious design, so that we can follow it’[1]. We have good works to do both together and specific works which we were chosen to do.
A well loved Psalm says, ‘You knit me together in my mother’s womb’ (Psalm 139:13). If you think about how intricate a human being is, it’s absolutely amazing. God made us to be unique and to be in his likeness. We were not an accident, and neither was the world that he created!
God said to Jeremiah ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…’ (Jeremiah 1:5). Before we were ever old enough to understand our faith, God has been at work in our lives, even before we were born. In Jeremiah’s case, he thought that he was too young to speak, in a world that preferred maturity, but God had chosen Jeremiah and gave him the words to say[2].
[1] Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters, (SPCK, 2004, p.24).
[2] John Goldingay, Jeremiah for Everyone. (SPCK, 2015, p. 9).
Following our Lord, does not mean that we will have an easy life, and will not face difficulties. The path can seem very bumpy, up, down and around, or through the middle of the wilderness! But we need prayer and faith to keep going in the right direction, and it is not always the obvious or easiest path that we are called to follow. It is certainly not the case that God is not with us because things have become tough. Even if we have made the wrong choices, we can pray for God to guide us to where he wants us to be. We may find challenges, in our health, our finances or our relationships with others. How we deal with these, may well be different to how the world lives out adversaries. If Christ is at the centre of who we are and all that we do, whatever is happening, Jesus is our rock.
Simon and Kathryn
I hope that through me being honest, I have encouraged you to seek to become the person that you were created to be. If you think that God is calling you to do something different, whether that be a new job, volunteering or exploring vocations, can I suggest that you pray about it, talk to other Christians and ask God to reveal more of his plan to you and others. It maybe that right now, you are in the place/ situation that God has called you to. I want to encourage you to continually seek God. For years one of the prayers that I have prayed at the start of each day, is that God will make me more into the person that he created me to be. This was never going to be a quick transformation, it has taken time as God works in me bit by bit, and there’s plenty more to do! There is always a risk when we trust God enough to put him in charge. God might ask us to do something that we would never have dreamt of. As the Lord’s Prayer says, ‘Your will be done’. Maybe becoming the person that we were created to be opens us to a new adventure with God.
Kathryn Elsmore, Assistant Curate
Hennie, Kathryn and Archdeacon Mike