Be Your Best You

The Army Historical Foundation’s website presents an article written by Tom Evans entitled, “All We Could Be: How an Advertising Campaign Helped Remake the Army.” The author takes a deep dive into how the Be All You Can Be slogan that defined the Army’s recruiting program for more than twenty years reversed a failing initiative and gave this branch of the military new hope in volunteer enlistment. In addition to recruitment showing a dramatic turnaround, the recruits overall were more highly educated than those of the past and were better equipped to embrace the growing technologies that were adding complexity to military service itself. 

Somewhere out there in the universe of advertising agencies was a guy named Earl who thought it would be much better received by currently enlisted folks as well as potential recruits if the wooing didn’t sound waxy and utopian as a brand experience as was the routine approach among ad agencies, regardless of whether they were intending to sell a car or toothpaste. He thought to address real outcome where it remained within the power of the consumer to achieve the results. This was not only authentic but also well-suited philosophically to the military’s methodology. In consideration of this ad, the slogan’s creator, Earl Carter, received the Outstanding Civilian Service Award from the U.S. Army in January 2003, and his original concept sheet with the words “Be All That You Can Be” is now part of a permanent collection at the U.S. Army Heritage Center Foundation. 

It turns out the idea of “Be All You Can Be” speaks to people. This idea of converging one’s own potential with training and opportunity is widely appealing. The military life seems to those of us outside of it as highly crafted and defined, loaded with specificity, full of clarity. This surely must be the design of any arrangement that is meant to bring out the best in you. In fact, I suspect that “be all you can be” sounds irresistibly desirable to anyone if only the map for achievement is available. It would be like saying, “I’m just here living my best life,” but instead of it being a pop-culture expression, it’s actually true! What are the tools necessary for God’s children to experience such a result as being all you can be? 

Embrace Your Purpose 

It’s one thing to sing with spiritual pride the words to the Sunday School song, “I’m in the Lord’s Army,” but it is an altogether different matter to finish that declaration with, “so, therefore, I will…” If you wonder what your purpose in God’s plan is, I understand. When my twenty-year role at a financial company was being relocated to a headquarters almost two hours from my home, I had to ask myself, “Do I move? Do I get an apartment? Do I walk away?” My investment in that career felt to me like it was my mission field. God certainly made it clear I needed to step away, but as a missionary dislodged from my field of service, I really didn’t know what was next. Being available to His nudging becomes everything. Being available to Him makes the discovery of purpose downright thrilling. Not responding to His nudging will feel a whole lot more like Jonah’s trip to Nineveh. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10, NIV used throughout). Give the following reality some good, hard thought: God prepared works you alone were meant to complete. Can He get it done without you? Of course—but He chose you. Be available, act on the nudging, and embrace your purpose. 

Do Your Best 

Several years ago, a sister in Christ and I desired to see a circle of co-contributors to a common project raise their level of quality in what they were delivering. There was a “that’s good enough” attitude prevailing in matters of Christian service, and we both wanted to see that change. I felt almost uncomfortable pursuing the matter because it wasn’t dealing with matters essential to salvation, and the point at which anyone takes pride in their work or feels a sense of achievement is an individual matter. Then my sister said to this audience in the most gentle and loving way, “We can do better.” That was it. It wasn’t a rejection of what was, but a heartfelt desire to enrich the offering. Second Timothy 2:15 says, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” Colossians 3:23-24 reads, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”  

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness 

We can truly only understand righteousness through knowing God. Paul said to the Ephesian believers, recorded in 1:17, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.” This text has Paul focusing on prayers for wisdom as a means of knowing God. The wise sage sitting on top of a mountain is a notion found in many fables, plots, and subplots through the years, but, in fact, our wise sage doesn’t involve Sherpas leading us above the snowline in the Himalayas. He is actually with us, right here and right now. 

Proverbs 8’s introduction to wisdom is delivered in spectacular fashion. Throughout the chapter, Wisdom describes herself as in possession of knowledge and discretion; dwelling with prudence; hater of pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech; possessor of counsel and sound judgment. It is attainable through consuming the word of God and pursuing Him passionately in prayer. Writer Mallory Smyth records “Wisdom is seeing the world from God’s perspective and then applying that perspective to our lives.” She adds, “When we seek wisdom, we seek to know God’s mind and act according to His unchanging truth. We then respond to situations from an eternal perspective.”i 

Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” God assures us this pursuit of knowing, understanding, and being righteousness is something He is pouring out on us, and it is for us to consume it. 

Be a living example of what it looks and feels like to love and forgive. This begins with yourself. We are made in His image; we are the Potter’s clay; we are imperfect yet loved so much God sent His son to redeem us. There is a humble path to self-love, and that is by seeing ourselves as someone God designed on purpose. He gets you. He not only knows your sins, He understands how you came to them. He already prepared for it. That’s why there is Jesus. Do not reject yourself or fail to forgive yourself. Take off your lenses and put on His. He needs you to be good at this because you will always be the one hardest on yourself. If you can love and forgive yourself, you are well positioned to endow the same on others. What a different world it would be if we all felt free to love and forgive others even as they do not seek it. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). 

Protect your heart from activities that leave your heart empty, pray about everything, share. Share your heart, share your wallet, share your time, share your wisdom, share a hope of eternity. 

After a twenty-year hiatus, the United States Army announced in 2023 that they were reintroducing their successful military slogan of the past, Be All You Can Be. This phrase has 80% recognition with its brand, which is an advertiser’s dream. It sounds pretty wonderful, actually. We are meant to achieve this idea of being all we can be, not for our lifetime but for all that God intends to complete through us now and into the future, even into eternity. We have but one pass in the flesh to strive for it. Let’s make it happen!