Pontential

In your life, do you feel that you have reached your full potential? As I started this essay, I realized that our potential (our ability to accomplish our capability) is a major part of each of our lives! It is a part of living that we often use as we judge ourselves. It is a part we fear, always feeling we could have done more, while at the same time cherish, as we look back at our accomplishments.
Sadly, it is one of the principle things our leaders try to control! And, as I refer to leaders, I’m referring to EACH person we come in contact with that could have the ability to change our lives
I truly believe each person’s true potential is one of society’s most feared objects! In every religious book, we find passages that tell us our God wants to hold back many of our potentials, especially those of women! Could God really want that of any of His children? If My God gives me the potential to do something, I just can’t believe that He would have instructed that person, the one who wrote a religious book thousands of years ago, to tell me now that I can’t do something because it is wrong! Just because it was wrong then, does that by necessity make it wrong today?
Often, in my lifetime I have been told that I ask too many questions. But, I found that many times if I ask the same question of different people, many who felt they were qualified to answer; I could expect many different answers! About that time, I started going to My Father in Heaven for my answers1 I was looking for true answers, not someone’s interpretation! One day I asked Him if I was asking too many questions, His reply was; if you don’t ask questions, how can you expect answers?
I believe our potential is like many other gifts our God gives us. Like our other gifts, if we use those gifts well they will grow and more gifts will come our way. But if, we hide those gifts or let others try to control them they will wither and fade away. Those potentials, that we have received, should not be compared to those given to others. My potential does not make me more right or wrong than you, just different. I maybe can’t jump as high or run as fast as you, I just don’t have that potential.
My Grandma was one that taught me to never underestimate my potential. She would never allow me to say that I could not do something. If I would tell her that I could not do something, her reply was always; have you tried? If my answer was yes, her comeback was: have you really tried? I never could fib to my Grandma because she always knew! Because of her I fulfilled many of my dreams that I normally would have backed away from. I have had several times in my life that I ran above my potential and did the impossible dream! I’ve had other times that I ran full steam into corners! But, I tried, I really tried! The only way you can find out how much God gave you to work with is to try, to really try!
I know the world is always trying to keep our potential safely in a box. We are told to use our potential to the fullest, but then we hear a whisper behind our back, someone saying; but, we can’t let it go too far!
Most of us have some idea of what our potential really is, but many times we use it as a whipping boy! When talking about it in our conversations we often slip in that BUT word! That one word is used so often to allow us “wiggle room.” It gives us the satisfaction of knowing that we aren’t any worse than the rest of the world!
Let’s kick that “but” word! Let’s spread our wings and fly! It was God that gave us our potential, let’s use every drop of it!