If your ministry is about helping people reach their full potential, I have a favor to ask.
Leave me alone. Please.
I’m not interested.
Everywhere I go lately, especially on the Internet, people are obsessed with helping me:
- “Be the success you were born to be!”
- “Claim the future you deserve!”
- “Reach your fullest potential NOW!”
- “Fulfill your dreams and claim your destiny!”
- and other similar goals.
These promises are especially prevalent in the hashtag-heavy Twitter profiles of self-proclaimed gurus, prophets and marketing experts.
And I’m not talking about secular folks. Those quotes are all from Christians and ministries claiming to operate by biblical principles.
They’re all promising me something next to heaven-on-earth in seven easy steps, one life-changing principle or by following a previously unlocked Bible secret.
Sorry. No.
Even if they could pull off their wild claims, I’m not interested.
My Fullest Potential Will Never Be Enough.
You see, I’ve chosen to be a follower of Jesus. A disciple. From the moment I did that, I gave up ownership of my life.
My life is no longer mine. It’s his. So my goals don’t matter anymore. Fulfilling my potential is not enough. Not for me, my church, my family or my ministry.
I don’t want my best. I want God’s best. Because his ideas are different than mine. And his best is better.
Of course, that’s what so many of these self-help gurus are claiming. That, whatever my dreams for my life are, God has 10 or 100 times more than that for me. (The really holy ones will use old-timey Bible terms like 10-fold and 100-fold).
But the difference between my best and God’s best for me is not a matter of scale. It’s not that I’m asking for 100 and God wants me to ask for 1,000 or 10,000. Getting more of what I want is not God’s best, it’s just more of my best.
The problem with my faith is not that I’m not asking for enough things. It’s that I keep asking for the wrong things. For my things, not his things.
Actually, I need to stop asking for things entirely, and ask for more of Jesus.
