I’m tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
I don’t know what you’re expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow
Every step that I take is another mistake to you
Caught in the undertow, just caught in the undertow. (Numb -Linkin Park)
I suspect that most if not all of you have heard someone tell you that you weren’t living up to your potential. It may have been in relation to your studies, job performance, or athletic endeavors but sadly it rolled off the tongue far too easily. Since we all fall victim to the insinuation and are complicit in the accusation we need to ask ourselves what it actually means. Potential is the recognition of something uniquely possible for a specific individual and yet also seems to be a universal rubric that can be applied to all people. But what is one’s potential and why do others think they can measure it?
Potential is defined as latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness. So “living up to one’s potential” really means actualizing our gifts and talents in daily life. We can’t know a person’s potential without first seeing hints of it being lived out.
Potentiality can only be recognized if it has at least been partially actualized in the public sphere. Can an athlete who competes without observers set a world record? Would Mother Theresa have been a model of compassion if she never left the nunnery? Would Einstein have been a genius if he never published his scientific work?
I would argue that the reason we recognize potential in general is because we are all image bearers held to a heavenly standard, and the reason we recognize potential individually is because we all possess unique talents. Usually when a comment is made about one’s potential it is targeted at a specific trait or skill that is felt to be underutilized. I would argue that these traits or skills fall into the categories described by the Bible as spiritual gifts, and even if you are an atheist these classifications still apply. A spiritual gift is merely a specific talent that one has which is can be powerful force for good when fueled by the Holy Spirit. The standard Biblical list of these gifts includes several that are recognized in both secular and faith circles, such as teaching, service, encouraging, giving, leadership, mercy, wisdom, and knowledge, and several that are specific to the religious life such as prophecy, faith, healing, discerning, and use of tongues. Since it is difficult, if not impossible, to identify these traits in the animal kingdom, we have to assume that they have a heavenly origin. Genesis one describes humans being created in the image of God and Genesis two describes humans as God breathed both of which suggests that humans possess traits that can only be described as spiritual. These gifts are called spiritual because without the work of the Spirit they are just unconscious acts of image bearing, however, with the Spirit they become God’s animated breath, heaven touching earth, Jesus to the world.
Interestingly, the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor.
But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:34-40)
The Biblical mandate to love God calls us to recognize the One who knitted us together with uniquely gifted yarn and the command to love our neighbor is the commission to take that quilt to the world to comfort others. So when we see someone who hasn’t lived up to their potential we are basically concluding that they aren’t operating up to divine factory specifications.
Storing up potential is burying talents in the ground but living one’s potential is putting them to work and exceeding expectations.
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. (Matthew 25:14-18)
Actualizing our image-bearing potential leads to recognition by God.
For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (Matthew 25:29-30)
The world will never know your potential unless you actualize it, likewise, God won’t recognize your potential until you become the image-bearer He created you to be.
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:20-23, my emphasis)
God knit each one of us together in our mother’s womb with unique thoughts and talents which when not fully realized cause us to fall short of our potential. These gifts are apportioned to each one of us in varying degrees therefore our potential can only be evaluated individually. God knows our potential but He wants us to take those talents to the world. In the opening chapter of Genesis after God creates humans, He declares that the world is very good. Is it possible that what makes the world very good are humans who have actualized their God given potential? People who make the world a better place by bringing talents no one else possesses.
We are all beautiful boats adrift on the sea until we hoist our sails and fill them with a Holy Spirit breeze that takes us to ports we could never have imagined. So we have to ask ourselves whether we are dead in the water or the Wind is at our backs?
We recognize that every person has talents, some are amenable to measurement and some are not, some are isolated and some are cooperative, but no matter how you look at them, we seem quite confident that taking those talents to the world is a good thing. Sadly, our culture seems more about hoarding potential than actualizing it. We give our kids participation trophies for skills they never truly tested. We damn up self-esteem but never let others drink from its healing waters. We encourage others to build up the credit side of their life ledger without ever expecting them to take the risk of investing in others. We are so enamored with building grain silos that we fail to see the growing bread line of those in need.
And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21, my emphasis)
If our motivation for revealing our potential to others is to be congratulated by the world then we are storing up earthly treasures but if we are doing it for God then we are investing in heaven. I want to make it clear that we actualize our gifts not to fulfill a commandment but to present ourselves back to God as the absolutely unique, dearly beloved, person that He created us to be. God doesn’t want obedience to general rules as much as He wants us to actualize the potential He wove into our human fabric.
Actualizing our potential may be seen in the extraordinary but it is more frequently found in the mundane. We admire the martyrs of the faith but the real fuel for the growth of the church were the nameless Christians who took in abandoned babies, ministered to the sick, and loved their neighbors as themselves. It was lives of service that actualized their God-given potential.
“With us, on the contrary, you will find unlettered people, tradesmen and old women, who though unable to express in words the advantages of our teaching, demonstrate by acts the value of their principles. For they do not rehearse speeches, but evidence good deeds. When struck they do not strike back; when robbed, they do not sue; to those who ask, they give, and they love their neighbors as themselves. If we did not think that a God ruled over the human race, would we live in such purity? The idea is impossible. But since we are persuaded that we must give an account of all our life here to God who made us and the world, we adopt a temperate, generous, and despised way of life.” (1)
Actualized potential does not mean that we must be the Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) but rather a servant to all. Even the disciples made this mistake when they asked Jesus if he would designate them as the G.O.A.T. apostle. Jesus made it very clear that we are all going to be citizens of a Kingdom ruled by a suffering servant whose constitution mandates that our potential be actualized in the arena of public service.
But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great one’s exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28)
(1) Athenagoras, A Plea Regarding Christians, in Early Christian Fathers, ed. Cyril C. Richardson (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 310.
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