Potential

Photo by Ahmed Saffu on Unsplash

Potential // pə(ʊ)ˈtɛnʃ(ə)l // From the Latin potentia, meaning 'power', and from the Latin potent meaning 'being able'.


How often do you wonder if you're reaching your potential? How often do you stop to wonder what your potential is? How often do you stop to think about what you have the power and ability to do?

At each of our team meetings we do a staff reflection. A few weeks ago, it was my turn to share. I spent a bit of time praying and thinking about how to share words which I hoped would be useful and fruitful for everyone. And afterwards, I received some really great words of encouragement - including one colleague who noted how much he thought I'd improved in my speaking ability.

And it caught me off guard because until that moment, I hadn't realised that I'd improved in something: or even that I had the capacity to. In the busy, everyday nature of my job, I'd forgotten about my potential.

Luckily, we don't have to be thinking about our potential all of the time in order to reach it. In fact, it's definitely unhealthy to obsess over what we could be doing, rather than what we are doing. But what's really important is that we recognise that no matter what our circumstance, that we have power and we are able.

The world and others can crush our potential - advertising tells us that we have to be 'the best'; that we have to own the 'right stuff'. And we naturally compare ourselves to others, wishing that we were funnier like ... , more successful than ... , or a better person than we believe ourselves to be. Yet we can do more when we believe that we can; when nobody else can tell us otherwise.

And when we're failing to believe in ourselves, the Bible has some pretty profound words on how God can use us too:

"...that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever." 

Or in the Message Translation of that last section - 

"God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us."

Back to my staff reflection, and I realised that I had improved because of one simple thing. Because I believed that I had something worth sharing. I believed in myself, and in God using me; in the power and ability of my words to impact others.

And I'm learning that it's really important when we start to remember our potential - when we start to remember what we are able to do; and the power that is within us to do. We grow more into who we are supposed to be. This doesn't mean that we'll automatically thrive; and often it takes time. But we've got our whole lives to keep reaching our potential; we just need to make sure that we don't limit it by our own doubts.

Even from a space of stability, I can grow new skills and reach new potential. Especially from a place of challenge or uncertainty, I can grow new skills and reach new potential. Irrespective of what I'm facing, God is at work, and is most certainly able.