What if I told you I felt as though for years I was living beneath my potential? Well, I did. The one thing that held me back was fear combined with a lack of faith. Sure I sang about it. I helped lead people in worship and sang songs that talked about it. I preached about it, taught about it, and even Facebook “statused” (yes I just made that word up) about it. I tweeted about it. I even “hashtagged” it (yep made that one up too). But did I truly believe it? Did I truly live it? I encouraged other people to have faith and trust God but secretly I didn’t trust Him to do the same things in my own life. All of this changed about 4 years ago. It was like I had an epiphany. I started looking at what so many other people were doing which led me to ask myself,
Why not me? What do they have that I don’t have? Why are they seemingly living out their dreams and I’m always helping someone else live out theirs?
It was the story of my life. I realized I was stuck because of ONE thing. I thought that my success was dependent upon me. I didn’t factor God in at all. So, if I could not figure out how it was going to work, then I did not have the confidence to pull the trigger. I was relying solely on my own human effort, resources, abilities, connections and finances.
However these things alone never seemed like they were enough to pull off what I wanted to do. So, I talked myself out of all sorts of great ideas over the years. Allow me to now share what I call two “faith moves” that radically changed the way live my life now.
Faith Move #1 – A Business Move
About 4 years ago I had an idea that, to my knowledge, no one had done in the DFW area. I had the idea to start a summer calculus camp to teach students calculus before they take the course during the school year. Immediately my negative self-talk started again.
Who’s going to sign up for a SUMMER CALCULUS CAMP Why would people want to give me their hard earned money? What if I pay for all of the up front costs and no one enrolls?
Like so many times before, I was afraid. However this time I was not dominated by fear and didn’t allow it to paralyze me. Men and women were often afraid in the Bible (e.g. Moses (Ex. 3 &4) and Gideon (Judg. 6 &7)). But it’s when you allow your fear to paralyze you from moving forward that causes you to be stagnant. Did God ever promise we would not be afraid? As a matter of fact in the Bible He knew we would be, so He would often comforted His servants in the midst of their fears. After 4 years the camp is going strong and growing.
Faith Move #2 – A Ministry Move
About a year ago I had the idea to start a ministry of creating YouTube videos and writing blogs. Once again the doubts started.
What if no one watches the videos? 5 minutes is a lot of time to ask of people these days? What if I put all of this work in and it’s a flop? Who am I to demand people’s time and attention every week? Why do we need another blog?
God had to remind me that it was not about these worldly, superficial things. It is about being obedient to what I felt He was leading me to do, trusting Him and being faithful. I was quickly reminded of some of the prophets in the Bible who spoke for decades only to see but a few converts, and yet they were still so faithful. So in August 2015 I launched a ministry of creating videos, eBooks, and blogs. God has been faithful once again and has exceeded what I’ve expected thus far.
But had I not made the faith move to start my summer math camp and saw how faithful God was to that idea, I more than likely would not have had the courage to trust God for the ministry faith move.
Now, this brings me to you. What has God put on your heart to do? Are you trusting in yourself or in God’s power and provision to bring it to pass? Do you feel like a wound up ball of potential waiting to be unleashed? You will never fulfill your full potential until you are willing to fail. That goes for relationships, businesses, ministries, or any other idea that you may have. If you have a great idea, get out of your safe zone and start putting some action behind your thoughts. You have lived enough of your life in fear. It’s time to start living by faith. It’s time not to care about what people may think if you fail. It’s time to start seeing God do things in and through you that amaze you because you know it was Him and not you. It’s time for you to have a testimony of faith moves that you can look back on the next time your faith is tested. It’s time for you to stop trusting only in what you can see and start factoring God’s unlimited power into the equation. It’s time for you to attempt something so big you need God in order to pull it off. It’s time for you to start believing that God wants to bless and prosper your ideas if your motivation is to use it to impact His kingdom and bring glory to Him. It’s time for you to stop living beneath your potential and live out your purpose.