“When I grow up, I wanna be just like her.”
Who are the people you’ve said that about?
For me, the ones who stand out have been the wise and faith-filled women who have embraced, supported, and instructed me throughout my life. Women like my Ammachi—my grandmother—who taught me that God abides with us even in the deepest uncertainty and pain. Women like my 7th grade English teacher, who reminded me that God intends so much more for us than just bare survival. Women like my favorite nuns in Wisconsin, who showed me that God already has us enclosed in an eternal embrace and harbors no blame or wrath towards us in our weakness. When I grow up, I wanna be just like those women.
What about you?
Who has made you say, “When I grow up, I wanna be just like them.”
Usually we think about those words coming from children, as a stamp of approval and admiration for the role models in their lives. Role models are a powerful part of how we as humans find our way in the world, as we grow up and wrestle with what kind of people we want to become. We look to our them as examples, teachers, and mentors, as we try to discern what paths we will follow and whose wisdom will guide us. They are people who make us say “They have it figured out; I want what they have. I wanna be just like them when I grow up.”
I once asked one of these wise women what her “secret” was. “How do you have such joy and calm and deep, deep compassion?” She laughed and assured me that she was anything but unflappable. But she did eventually say that one of the key lessons God has taught her is to never stop saying, “When I grow up, I wanna be like them.”
We might think that kind of awe-struck admiration is childish. And sure, maybe adults don’t usually think in terms of “When I grow up…” But it’s a dynamic that continues into adulthood. It’s the attitude we’re all meant to maintain, throughout our lives if we want to keep learning and healing and growing and developing into the fullness of who God created us to be.
In the spiritual life, a common rule of thumb in picking a mentor—whether a sponsor, a spiritual director, a confessor, or what have you—is to look for someone who makes you say, “I want what they have.” Because whether or not we say out loud, “when I grow up,” that act of affirming, “that’s the kind of person I want to become” is an acknowledgement of the fact that we are indeed still growing—that we are not yet who we are meant to become.
It both expresses and reminds—us of our need—of our smallness and of our potential—of how far we have to go and of the destination we’re bound for. Saying “When I grow up…”—however we say it; however we embody it—returns us to a humility that is open to growth. It plants a longing for what we will become; for the future that God has in store of us; for the Kingdom of Heaven.
This humble and hopeful openness to God’s future is exactly what we see modeled by young King Solomon today. God asks him to imagine a future—to name and ask for what kind of king he wants to be. And any Near Eastern king worth his salt at that time would have announced how great an era had dawned with his reign. He would have reveled in the power clutched in his hand, citing his pedigree as evidence of his standing, and confidently invoking the patronage of his God. But we hear something quite different from Solomon’s mouth.
When God prompts him to ask for the future he wants, Solomon looks ahead with childlike longing and aspiration. He acknowledges his smallness: “I am only a little child; I don’t know how to go out and come in. I don’t know how to lead this people you’ve given me, I don’t know how to govern this land where you’ve planted me.I am only a little child.” This isn’t an expression of worthlessness, but of incompleteness. It shows that Solomon knows that he is not yet wise—not yet grown up. He has not yet matured into one of those mighty cedar trees that kings would compare themselves to. He acknowledges that he’s still a seed, just beginning to sprout. “I am only a little child…”
“But when I grow up,” young Solomon says. “When I grow up, I want to be wise, discerning, and faithful just like you made my father David before me.”
And this is where we see how Solomon’s acknowledgement of his smallness opens him up to something more: to God’s future. Seeing and naming that he is just a little child—that he is not yet grown into the fullness of what God intends—makes Solomon aware that he wants to grow. He wants God to make him complete. Inspired by the (admittedly idealized) model of his father, Solomon yearns for God to nurture in him the wisdom, discernment, and faithfulness which bring fallen humanity to the fullness of beauty intended by God. Solomon sees that he is small but still growing, and he longs to become the king, the man, the person that God made him to be.
Solomon sees how small he is—as small as a tiny mustard seed. And he sees the abundance of God’s promise—the great tree that God turned his father David into. And he says, “When I grow up, that’s what I want. I want to be just like my father David. I want to grow into what I’m meant to be.” In embracing his smallness—in acknowledging his incompleteness and yearning for growth—Solomon returns to that childlike openness which is the seed from which God’s unexpected future springs.
God is pleased that Solomon sees that he’s just a seedling. And God raises that seedling into a tree that stands far above the rest. God turns the young child, who did not know how to go out or come in, into a king like no other, a model of God’s reign for the nations. God promises Solomon that the seed of his childlike humility and expectation will grow into an abundance more vast and beautiful than he can imagine.
And lest we think this promise is just for kings—that God only raises up the people who make history or whose names survive in royal genealogies—Jesus in the Gospel proclaims this promise to all of us. Jesus promises that the tiny seed of humble expectation is the seed of the Kingdom of Heaven—not just the kingdom of Solomon. Jesus promises that the tiny seed of love of faithful wisdom and discernment is the seed of priceless treasures for all of humanity—not just Solomon’s prosperity and renown. Jesus promises that the tiny seed of Solomon’s yearning for wholeness and growth is the seed of the restoration of all of Creation—not just the integrity and greatness of one ancient king.
That tiny, little seed is planted anew whenever we acknowledge that we are weak and incomplete and yet yearn to grow into the full stature of Christ. So may God grant us the grace through the Spirit moving in us to join Solomon in saying, “I am only a little child. But when I grow up… I want to be all that you mean me to be.”