Columnists
Reaching your full potential
By John Hoelzel Sr.
May 11, 2008
Lots of groups and movements work in behalf of people to help them reach their full potential. For example my personal benefit in the past, and my planning and work today, with people in the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is focused on helping persons who experience mental illness to achieve their full potential. We call this "recovery" and see a lot of it.
Long range and strategic planning is often used to help companies and organizations reach and maintain their full potential. In such contexts we would reason that anything short of this is foolish, wasteful, short-sighted, and poor management. But all of this begs the questions like: What kind of potential? Potential to do what? What ultimate objectives are driving these efforts? Is it possible to lean your ladder against the wrong wall and climb to the top only to discover the ladder is placed against the WRONG wall? Do our different roads lead to the same place, or are do any of these roads really lead to anything that is lasting, satisfying, and permanent?
Today I want to urge you to continue any "best practices" of planning and putting both your personal and your company "best foot forward." But how can you truly reach your full potential without knowing your creator, sustainer, and redeemer and choosing to cooperate with Him? Anything less than that would be to say that you are more capable than God at knowing how to be successful and achieve all you were designed to be. It should be noted however that MANY people today fully believe they can improve on God and His ways. A good example is our government which was founded by Godly men willing to lay down their life for freedom, country, and the future of others. But today we see many that want to try to remove God from influencing our lives. Wisely our founding fathers said man was too corrupt to rule without checks and balances and the direct hand of God leading and empowering him.
So for any of us to reach our full potential, we need to first come to grips with who we are, why we are here, and what is most important from an eternal perspective. Our Creator-Redeemer said it this way: Joh 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Eternal life lasts forever, and offers God’s promise for us to enjoy potential that we have not yet even dreamed of.