Last Sunday morning I had the opportunity to speak about, “Reaching Your Potential” @ Hoosier Harvest Church (you can listen or watch the message).  I wanted to recap and add some things I didn’t have time to share in the message, so here goes…

We ALL have seeds of potential within us.  God created us to soar in our purpose, dreams, gifts and talents.  Yet sometimes instead of soaring we are weighed down by things in our life that keep us from reaching the heights of our potential.  These are the sandbags of life that keep us grounded instead of soaring.  We all have sandbags.  The good news is…if we cut the ties to these sandbags we can begin to live the life we were created to live.  And let’s face it, we ALL know we were created for more than what we currently are living. If you think you have arrived, you limit what could be.  That is the great thing about potential…we all have more…God never runs out of things to do in us and through us.  So here are the sandbags and some things I didn’t have time to share about them…

1. FEAR

Fear is the enemy of faith.  It attacks us and threatens our comfort zone.  Fear causes us to live a ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim, aim kind of life.  We never step out and pull the trigger of courage because we are afraid we will miss the target.  But failure is part of success.  It’s ok to miss the target sometimes.  It helps us learn how to become more consistent with our success.  Someone who has never failed doesn’t really know as much as the person who has failed and learned through.  Success can be one sided many times.  It’s like the Edison quote…when asked about his failure to create the light bulb over a thousand times he said, “I didn’t fail, I successfully discovered 1,000 ways to not make a lightbulb.”  Fear paralyzes us.  It puts a limit on our potential.  Courage is not the absence of fear but it’s moving ahead in spite of it.  We will always have some element of fear threatening our courage. but when courage outweighs the fear we begin to reach for our potential.

2. TIME

“I just don’t have enough time to…” We have ALL said it.  We are ALL given the exact amount of time each day.  No one gets more no one gets less.  It’s what we do with the time given to us that makes the difference.  If we are going to reach our potential we have to create opportunities to invest our time into our gifts.  The English word OPPORTUNITY comes from the latin phrase Ob Portu.  In the days before modern harbors, ships had to wait to flood tide to make it into port.  The Latin phrase Ob Portu referred to “That moment in time when the tide would turn.”  The captain and crew would wait for that window of opportunity to open, and they knew if they missed it, they would have to wait for another tide to come in.  We have to use opportunities and not shrink back from them.  And success comes when preparation meets opportunity.  When we have been using our time to prepare ourselves we are ready for opportunity.  To many people wait for the opportunity then try to start preparing only to find it is too late or they are not ready.  There are 3 kinds of people when it comes to time (check this out from a previous blog I wrote, TIME KEEPS ON TICKIN’).

3. RESOURCES

“I would step out if I had more resources, more money, more time, more skills, more knowledge, more opportunities, etc…” We always have an excuse don’t we? We have got to use what we HAVE though.  So many times we are waiting for something to drop in our lap rather than maximizing what we have.  I would say that where you are and what you currently have is exactly what you need right now to get to where you need to go.  God wouldn’t call us to something we can’t get to.  Whatever you have right now CAN BE used to reach for your potential.  It’s all a matter of how you see it and use it.  You want to step out and follow your dreams? DO IT, what are you waiting for? Take what you have and do the best.  Innovative people are not innovative because they have ALL the right tools, they are innovative because they take whatever tools they have and make something out of it.  What is holding you back right now from following your dreams? Be faithful with what you have and God will increase your ability.  But if you are not being faithful with what you have and NOT working it out, you WILL NOT grow it.

What are some tings that are holding you back? I would love to hear from you, so comment on this post and find some encouragement.