It’s all there. It just needs to be worked out.
One of the most frustrating words in the English language is ‘potential’. Hours and hours are devoted to what could be. You see someone, you come across a group of people, you observe a situation and you have a sense of what could happen. You watch further and get to see if that comes about and often there’s that tinge of disappointment because what was there wasn’t experienced or expressed.
That’s not just about what you see about others. It is just as much about what you see in yourself. That’s not helped by other people who hear your story and venture as to what you could have been. That look of disappointment. That sigh that comes from them, almost out of pity that encapsulates that sentiment so things could have become so different.
What happens in a day to day walk with Jesus is about understandng more not just about who He is to you, but who He is through you. How does His life inform and influence yours by His Spirit so that when others see you, they see Him. It is a day to day walk. It is a moment by moment thing of responding to the events that happen to you as you endeavour to be faithful in what you do to ‘happen’ to others.
The more you look to Him, follow His word and lean on Him, the more you work out what He worked into you when He gave you His Spirit. This is not an occasional thing. It’s not like we switch on and switch off. He is our life and we seek to be consciously aware of His Lordship of our lives in all things. This is how we grow to appreciate who He is and what He desires. Then as we learn what He desires and our part in the process, so we are ever doing and being everything pleasing to Him.
Committing to that process – learning of Him – is how we go about working it out. Faith in Him is not a passive activity that makes no demands on us. Trusting God is not an excuse for doing nothing. He is not a mute idol. He is the living God who communicates with His people to the extent that His sheep know when the Shepherd talks and directs and leads.
We have an opportunity today – and just for today – to hear Him as He speaks and cooperate with Him to see how we can work it out.
That way we never have to concern ourselves with speculating and disappointing ourselves over potential.
(Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 