Day 153- Human Potential

📖Daily Reading

 Isaiah 38-39

🎥 Video  

Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.

 

📝 Reflection 

 Isaiah 38: 17-18

  Yes, this anguish was good for me, for you have rescued me from death and forgiven all my sins. For the dead cannot praise you; they cannot raise their voices in praise. Those who go down to the grave can no longer hope in your faithfulness. 

 

I love a good word break down to get back to the full meaning of something. When words are commonly used, sometimes we forget the power and the full meaning of what we are really saying. Know what I am sayin?  🤔 For the last few days this word for me has been; potential.  I was listening to a young rapper with my son and he use the word potent and then said that ‘it used to be potential’ and I just dropped my jaw at the play on words.   Wouldn’t you know it as I was reading God’s word this morning I could see the potency in Hezekiah get activated by his near death experience.

Every human is a reservoir of amazing potential. The root word of potential is potent. Potent means:  having great power, influence or effect; being able; having or wielding force, authority, or influence: powerful; achieving or bringing about a particular result: effective. So the word potential means: existing in possibility: capable of development into actuality; expressing possibility; something that can develop or become actual.  Whether or not the potential becomes actuality is matter of choice, conditions, timing, but mainly choice. I say choice, because through choice we can affect conditions and timing.  Many of us convince ourselves that we have less choice than we actually do (but this is another topic for another day).

Hezekiah is on his death bed, he is told by Isaiah the end is imminent and to get his affairs in order. Hezekiah turns to prayer and cries out to the Lord, asks for healing and reminds God of his faithfulness and service to God. Isaiah returns and delivers the message from God to Hezekiah that his prayers were heard and God will grant him another 15 years of life. Pretty amazing story. Hezekiah then goes on to write a poem of praise, which is where the verse quoted above comes from. 

Hezekiah has an epiphany and a powerful thought about what a powerful gift and potential and the choice that a human who is living can engage with God and praise and give something to God that a person who is dead cannot do. The potent engagement in faith, praise and worship that humans get to choose to do or not do. It often takes a near death experience or a life altering situation that gets up to wake up and activate this potential into an actuality.  

Nature is probably one of the best examples of this. We know that a seed has potential, but it doesn’t get actualized fully unless the right conditions are met. Some things do grow, but maybe don’t develop fully, are susceptible to disease, the soils is not nutritious, not enough water etc… We can still really enjoy nature even when it is not fully developed, even it the potential is partially actualized. But, when you compare those things to what is fully developed and actualized and the potential is fully realized we know the difference and we appreciate it!  

Sadly though most humans don’t see this same potential inside of themselves, and one of the ingredients that God gave us that sets us apart from plants and animals is free will. We have to play a role in our own potential of not only being activated but fully realized. We are going to see as we progress whether Hezekiah will choose this or not. God obviously saw the potential and all the right ingredients and even some evidence that this was a good move to make, but now Hezekiah will have to engage and do the ‘rest’.

I have a feeling we are going to be disappointed in the end. Even though he clearly has a major move up the potential ‘ladder’ with his near death experience and his grateful heart, praise and worship of God, but there are some red flags popping almost right away. He welcomes the Babylonians for a visit and shows them everything his kingdoms has, and where all the treasures are. Isaiah comes along in chapter 39 vs 6 as delivers this message ‘The time is coming when everything in your palace - all the treasures stored up by your ancestors until now, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left’ says the Lord…. Hezekiah’s response is ‘oh well, maybe at least there will be peace’ ( I am paraphrasing). 

To be continued… Just as this is a continuation from yesterday’s conversation about the path to mastery, just from a different perspective.  How are you doing on actualizing your potential. I think I am at the bottom of the ladder, but I am climbing and hopefully I will not stop short. Paradoxically we can’t actualize our potential on our own, we must partner with our creator, we must choose over and over again and keep growing and climbing. I think as we look at the clues from Hezekiah, he stopped at being grateful for his own personal benefit. He was so grateful personally that maybe he forgot to keep the bigger picture of what God wanted to do through him and his new lease on life…  

✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt 

 Do you have potency that you are keeping dormant in just a perpetual potential state?

📖Tomorrows Reading

Isaiah 40 

Coaching Opportunity

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