Potentiality: The Nature Of Our Potential

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

James 4:14

Before the grass takes root in the fresh soil spread over our graves, the world will have dried its tears for us, straightened its tie, and life will go on. We can never be replaced, but no one is indispensable. Our memory will be enshrined, but only in the hearts of a few loved ones.

We all want to have an impact, to have our lives make a difference, to count for something. What is the nature of that potential to contribute? How much of an impact can we really have? What will God allow and, more importantly, what does He desire of us?

We are like a drop of water in a river of humanity, born at the wellspring, flowing relentlessly toward the sea, muddied and polluted along the way, swirling ever forward toward our eternal destiny. Our lives in this river of humanity are brief. We can try to surge ahead of the other droplets born about the same time, but in reality no one can race too far ahead or, for that matter, fall too far behind.

Those around us hem us in as we are swept toward the sea. How much can one really add to life, anyway? Can we speed the river up or slow it down? Can we change its direction? Can we keep the water from becoming polluted? Can we change the drops of water into something else? How much can we really do?

There are two answers: The first is nothing really, and the second is that we will do greater things than Christ.

Nothing Really

Nothing happens apart from the sovereign will of God. “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow” (James 4:13-14). We are mere droplets of water which appear for a while, then vanish.

Yet, the personal Creator knows each of us, knows how many hairs attach to our scalp. “Does the rain have a father? Who fathers the drops of dew?” (Job 38:28). Everything which happens to us occurs according to the will of God, what He causes or allows. “He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams” (Job 36:27).

We can add nothing to the plan of God. In the strength of our own ingenuity, we contribute nothing to the course the river follows. We flow along at the speed He sets, either close to shore or far out toward the middle. We run shallow or deep at His command. What can we add to our lives that He has not given us?

Greater Things Than Christ

Though we can add nothing to the plan of God, we can change the course of history when we are connected to His plan. “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:15). Wanting God to bless our plans dooms them to fail. When we ask God to reveal His plans, we cannot fail.

Our greatest potential is to influence those other droplets of humanity flowing beside us. We may not be able to change the course of the river, but we can touch those God has pressed against us by His sovereign purpose and plan. We may not leave a legacy which will be known to future generations, but we all can make an impact on our immediate world. And this is the will of God.

Jesus calls us to be like Him, to do what He did when He entered the river of humanity. “‘I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing’” (John 14:12). He did not develop a great organization. Instead, He gave His life to a handful of improbable men. Whom are you giving your life to?

He did not leave a building named after Himself. Instead, He allowed the temple which was His body to be destroyed. Are you sacrificing your life for God or building monuments? He did not chose to live as the King He was. Instead He chose the life of a common man. Do you strive to rise above the common man?

Jesus’ potential must have looked meager. Yet His impact has reached across the centuries as no other. A peasant with clumsy friends and no possessions, the friend of beggars—are you like Him? Or do you try to be the exact opposite of Him? “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins” (James 4:17).

Does your potential look meager? Remember our Lord. Examine His ways. Consider His impact. If we have faith in Him, we will do what He was doing. And, as Jesus said, you “‘will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father’” (John 14:12). How should you reorder your priorities to meet your full potential, to do things even greater than Jesus?

I SURRENDER

Father, I confess that I have wanted to be remembered by men. I have been making plans and asking You to bless them. I know those plans are doomed to fail. I surrender my plans to You.

I have looked upon the common man with disgust. Forgive me, heal me, and change my attitude. Make me into more of a common man, more like the ones to whom the Lord Jesus was attracted. I humbly ask You to reveal Your plans to me so that I will not fail to have an impact, so that I will not fail to meet the potential You have given me. Amen.