It certainly was not enjoyable spending my birthday rushing through lab procedures in school, and having to go home only to prepare for a test that took place the following evening. Certainly not enjoyable to me at all. Yet amidst the lack of time, or perhaps during one of those moments where I just refused to think about dentistry, I still was able to steal some time away to ponder about life.
Not too long ago, a young kid was told by his nursery teacher that he was ‘stupid’, simply because he did not fare too well in his colouring assignment then. A couple of years later, in his teens, his band conductor commented on his unintelligence, simply because he played a single note wrongly.
The young kid, then, refused to go to school, and when his mum realised what had happened, got the nursery teacher sacked. The teen left the band, picked up a new instrument, only to help them out two years later, representing his school in a competition. This feat with only two weeks of practice.
Despite the few negative comments he has received, he has received many comments about his potential. His potential to achieve much in the future. The same kid who was inept at colouring, has now found himself drilling cavities in the mouths of patients, sculpting and carving full anatomical wax ups of teeth that has to be precise to fractions of a millimetre. The same teen who was deemed ‘unintelligent’ by his band conductor has now found himself a place in one of the most sought after places in the university today. This very same lad just received a compliment from his professor that he has the potential to do very well (except that he has to improve his handwriting so that he would not penalise himself during examinations…), not too long ago.
Perhaps he has indeed risen above those early negative perceptions, and has indeed flourished according to his potential. He probably has indeed achieved much. People once told him how much potential he has, and he must make use of this ‘God given potential’ to serve God and edify the church. He was once a youth leader in church, guiding a couple of the younger ones in their walk with God and helping them to also fulfil their ‘God given potential’, to achieve much in life and ministry. But is fulfilling one’s potential and living up to the expectations of others really so essential in life? Is it really that important to bloom in one’s ‘God-given’ potential?
It is not unusual for us to think about how we have got to trust God, and when we remain faithful, we are able to fulfil that ‘God-given’ potential. For this is what many of us are told. The secular world tells us to achieve and max out our potential, and we become a slave to our ambitions. The church attempts to Christianise the same very message adding an element of faith to it.
It is a message I am all to used to the past 23 years of my life. I am told that I need to do this and that to fulfil the ‘God-given’ potential or destiny God has for my life. That Jesus will empower me to fulfil this potential. And it would be such a waste if I do not fulfil this potential. That by trusting in Jesus, I can accomplish great things which I otherwise would not be able to. That if I come before Him, I would gain many achievements. But does this truly glorify God?
The thing about coming to Jesus to fulfil our potential is all but a masquerade of self glorification. For though it may seem that by coming to God to have our ‘God-given’ potential fulfilled, God is glorified through our deeds, the true idol is in our desire to have our potential fulfilled. While we may pay lip service to having God glorified, more often than not, our joy lies in the fact that we have achieved something. We find comfort in the fact that we have finally achieved something, and God is just the means by which we flourish and bloom to our fullest potential. Instead of God being all satisfying, we become satisfied only because we have gained something by the grace of God, not in and because of the grace of God. And somehow, we only become interested in God when there is a task for us to fulfil, and we are rarely able to find rest simply in His grace alone.
Oftentimes, we become so obsessed with finding out God’s will for our lives, whether the certain peculiar thing we do is indeed a choice that God wishes us to take. We get all panicky and frantic if we have not ‘heard’ from God regarding what to do, for if we did not choose what God had intended for us, we would not be living fully to our ‘God-given’ potential. Think again. Is it God we are truly concerned, or simply a preservation of self that we are truly concerned about. It has always been the me. Whether I fulfil MY ‘God-given’ potential. Whether I chose the right thing so that MY future is secured and blissful. That I have to come to Christ, otherwise I would not be able to achieve anything. And I have to get involved in this so that God would use ME. It seems as though God works so that I can work, and thus God works to serve me.
Are we, then, truly serving God, or using God to serve our lust for self glory and the need to feel important, having achieved and accomplish something?
And that is why I have come to realise that potential does not mean a thing at all. The past 23 years of my life has, in fact, been nothingness. In trying to fulfil my ‘God-given’ potential, I have in fact not achieved anything. For what does my potential mean at the end of the day? Does it count for anything to have it ‘fulfilled’? Is the Christian life and service truly about blossoming to one’s ‘God-given potential’? Is that truly the message of the Gospel? Is that what the Cross truly means?
The Cross is a tragic display of humanity’s inability to do anything that is of any worth. For if there is any innate worthiness, whatsoever, in mankind, there would not be a need for Christ to hang there. The Cross is also a glorious display of how humanity ought to be defined. It is at the Cross where man is once again defined as how he ought to be. It is at the Cross where Christ took on humanity, restoring it to what the Father intended. And therefore, if there is anything that is to define who I am, it can only be found in Jesus Christ, for apart from him, humanity cannot be defined.
And if it were so, and rightly so, there is no inherent worthiness of any sorts in man, much less any potential. What we have to realise is that the Christian life is not about realising our ‘God-given’ potential, but it is about Christ Jesus being realised in us. It’s about being transformed by the Spirit’s work into the likeness of Christ, for it is Jesus Christ who brings true meaning to humanity.
The thing about abiding and living in Christ is not about coming to Him with our long list of desires and ambitions to be filled in. It is not about Jesus helping us live to our fullest potential. It certainly is not about using God as a means to fulfil our aims or to achieve anything. But it’s about realising that there is no potential within us, realising that the only way by which we can be defined is not by our ‘God-given’ potential, tasks, abilities so to speak, but by the very nature of Christ Jesus Himself. It is about realising that we are nothing, and rightfully nothing without Him.
It is not about Christianising our lust for self glory by falling back on the ‘God-given’ potential premise, but to realise that such a premise is still a life independent and apart from Christ, that such is only an attempt to use Christ to serve our desires and need for something to be achieved by us. It is not about MY potential in Christ, or my ‘God-given’ potential for that matter. But it is about a God who loved enough to die on the Cross, taking all of humanity. It is about an imbecile race, not being able to achieve anything, not having any innate potential whatsoever, having no hope, but being restored only by a Saviour who came and define all of humanity. It is not about having my potential realised, but to have Jesus realised in me.
And while I do acknowledge that I have much potential, yet my faith in Jesus is not contingent on the realisation of these potentials. It does not make a difference whether or not these potentials are realised, for they do not define who I am. And if I allow them to define who I am, I have chosen to be defined by something of me that is apart from Christ Jesus. There is no worth in knowing or realising my potential, for it is a meaningless pursuit, even if I were to fall back on the pseudo spiritual claim of a ‘God-given’ potential. But what matters is whether I know Christ Jesus, His death and the power of His resurrection, and to have His life realised in mine, for that is the only way by which my life has been realised in Him, and not my ‘God-given’ potential. Though this does not mean that I shall become slothful. It just means that, now being under and in Christ, I abide by what He commands in His revealed Word, and not chasing imaginary word that exists in the recesses of my deceitful human heart, or a figment of my imagination.
Our notion of the Christian life must undergo a tectonic shift from the centrality of realising our potentials, to that of having Christ realised in us. We must stop thinking of what to achieve next, and focus on what Christ has already achieved on the Cross. We must stop thinking we ought do something that defines Christianity, and realise that it is the Cross that defines Christianity and what we do.
And thus my prayer for myself is not that I live to fulfil those potentials others spoke about, but that I may truly know Christ Jesus, His death and the power of His Resurrection. And in doing so, be empowered by the Spirit, not to fulfil my inherent potential, but that I may truly bear fruit for the Father’s glory, not by my deeds, but by being fully satisfied and contented in Him alone. For by such can I then be sure that my life amounts to nothing at the end of the day, for I have not come to know myself or my potentials, or to be defined by them, but to have known Christ Jesus, Him realised in me, and defining who I am.
