Potential

We looked at John 12: 24-25 last week at Youth:

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (NIV)

Put yourself in the position of a grain of wheat. You have spent your whole life attached to the stalk, high above the ground. You’re a good seed, you’ve matured, and have grown accustom to your surroundings.

Looking down at the ground – it doesn’t seem very inviting – dirty, cold, wet, and full of lot of critters running around that may eat you.

If you remain where you are you won’t achieve your potential, you’ll remain one seed. If you choose to give up your current existence and fall to the earth, you will germinate and grow into a new wheat plant that will produce on average 110 seeds. Your choice is to stay in your comfortable, known life and remain 1 seed of wheat – or give up that life in order to increase your impact by a hundredfold.

Logically, the choice is clear – but its not an easy choice to make. Emotion, self-preservation, and fear of the unknown all push you to stay put on the stalk.

Jesus asks us to trust God with our lives – to be willing to give our lives to Him so He can multiply our efforts while on earth. We can choose to remain where we are – satisfied to be one good Christian who has matured and is comfortable. Or, we can recognize our real potential, trust that God knows what He’s doing, fall into His will and let Him transform us into a new being that produces a hundredfold more than we can on our own.

Again, that sounds wonderful and like a no-brainer. It’s not – don’t underestimate our selfishness. I’ve determined that making the choice to give up our version of life for God’s version of our lives can’t happen without His help – we cling to our own sense of worth, knowledge, and pride too tightly to give it up ourselves. If living up to your potential is intriguing to you, my advice is not to attempt it on your own. Ask God to first give you the desire and the courage, then maybe one day you’ll actually be able to give up your feeble life for the God-powered life He intended for you.

The vast majority of Christians choose to be satisfied with a life that produces 1 seed rather than 110. You don’t have to. Yearn for more.