I just saw an image on facebook with the message, "The best love is the one that makes you a better person, without changing you into someone other than yourself" (Unnecessary comma in the original). Of course, this was meant to be a piece of relationship advice, but I couldn't help but see it in terms of our relationship with our Heavenly Father. He is the One who most wants to make us better people, but strangely, when He does, we don't stop being us. This seems to be a contradiction. How can He change us without changing us? Let us use an example in the form of chocolate ice cream.
Let's say I want some home-made chocolate ice cream, so I make a batch. It turns out "okay," but I want to improve it, but I still want it to be chocolate ice cream. So, I add more chocolate. Now, the ice cream is much better, but it's still chocolate ice cream. It also still tastes a little "off." I eventually discover that I put in too much of some non-chocolate ingredient (I'm not sure what goes into home-made chocolate ice cream), so I painstakingly remove some of the non-chocolate ingredient, or add more of everything else, and now the ice cream is just about perfect, but it's still chocolate ice cream, just like it was when we started. I didn't change it into rocky road ice cream or vanilla ice cream, I just made it a better kind of chocolate ice cream.
That's how it is with us. We each have a number of aspects that make us us, and some of them are better than others. God wants to improve on our positive aspects to make us better versions of us, but we will still, in some ways, be the same person we were when we started. God's not going to add almonds or marshmallows to us unless we were meant to have them all along, in which case, we probably would have had a few almonds and marshmallows when we started - just not enough. But not all of us were meant to be like rocky road ice cream. Some of us are better off as chocolate ice cream, and for those people, God's going to leave them that way (though He may still add more chocolate).
Now, let's imagine that, while I was making my chocolate ice cream, I accidentally or at least foolishly added an ingredient that doesn't belong in chocolate ice cream (or too much of an ingredient that does). That's what happens when we sin, or take a virtue to an extreme. When that happens, God will help us painstakingly remove those faults, though I'm sure He'll be careful not to remove anything that's meant to stay. While plucking mini-marshmallows out of my batch of chocolate ice cream, I'm sure God will be careful to not remove too much chocolate, and if I had added too much chocolate to my home-made chocolate ice cream (heaven only knows how!), He'll only take out as much chocolate as He needs to to get my consistency right. He won't take all the chocolate out of me and make me vanilla ice cream (yes, I know that's not how it works) unless I was meant to be vanilla ice cream all along, in which case, I probably didn't have any chocolate in me to begin with.
But, to be honest, I don't think God cares what flavor of ice cream we end up being, as long as we taste amazing. It doesn't matter whether we make ourselves chocolate ice cream, rocky road ice cream, or vanilla ice cream. God's going to make just enough improvements and suggestions to help us become the best chocolate/rocky road/vanilla ice creams we can be, and if that means there needs to be more or less of something that we already put in there, God will make the necessary adjustments - but no more. Thankfully (and frighteningly), He leaves most of our life decisions up to us. What kind of people we are is ultimately our decision. If I want to add peanut butter to my chocolate ice cream, God'll let me, and then He'll help me make it the best peanut butter chocolate ice cream it can be. What I am is my decision. God just wants to help me be the best me that I can be.
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