Superpowers

If you could choose just one superpower, what would you want to be able to do? I suppose it's a question for fun conversations, for laughing and joking around, because of course it's not for real. But I think the way people choose to answer this question can say something about who they are and what they want to be and do.

I used to know what my answer was, always, without thinking about it. I would want to be able to turn invisible. I'm afraid I'd probably use it mostly to spy on people . . . can you imagine how much you could learn that way? It seemed like the perfect tool for the girl who liked people, liked watching them, had a curiosity for knowing what was going on inside their heads, but didn't want to draw attention to herself, didn't want to be looked at, and didn't like the idea of other people knowing what was going on inside her head. To see without being seen seemed like a great idea.

This morning, I realized that my answer to this question has changed. I don't want to be invisible anymore. I'd already noticed that my answer had changed a little bit: I wanted to be able to be invisible sometimes, but when I was visible, I wanted people to see me! But today, I asked myself the superpower question and was about to give the usual answer, when I realized that it just wasn't true anymore.

Which, obviously, led to the question: what superpower would I want now? I don't have an answer yet. I'm not sure I actually want a superpower anymore. I was thinking about it, and--this connection of topics might seem strange, but it wasn't premeditated, that's just where my brain went--I started thinking about showing people God's love, convincing them of His truth, shining His light. That's not a desire for a superpower. That's a desire for the Holy Spirit. That's a desire to be a servant of the Lord.

I don't want anyone reading this to think that I'm some amazing person who's always going around sharing the Gospel with people. To be honest, I'm terrible in conversations like that. Nor am I some amazingly spiritual person who set out to spend the summer growing in my walk with God. I'm growing, but I don't take any credit for that. I didn't seek God this summer nearly as much as He sought me.

What is true is that I am realizing that serving God is the thing that I want most to do with my life. I used to say something else was that, although I won't say what. But I've realized that that was not the right priority. The thing that I like least about my new highest priority is that it's so vague. Well, not vague, but it doesn't exactly answer the question of where I'm going to be living and what I'll be doing 15 years from now or even 2 or 3 years from now. At this point, all I know as an answer to that question is: whatever God wants me to be doing.