POTENTIAL. Ya’ll know I love my P words. But this one in particular has been running through my mind continually. I believe ‘potential’ is the key we seek for the changes in our life we desire.

The potential for more in your life.
The potential for better of yourself.
The potential for a higher level of living.

This is the potential for finally breaking through every single thing that has ever held you back in the past. The story you tell yourself, the nightmare you replay, the lies you’ve believed. The disappointment you carry, the hurt you hide, the fear you live with. The hope you had, the hope that is now growing dim. Will it ever change for you? Can it? And then the honest question we all ask ourselves but never talk about … do I even deserve change at this point because I’ve allowed this for so long?

The potential is there. The question is will you tap into it? Will 2020 be the year you believe your potential. See you potential. Taste your potential. Live up to your potential.

There’s another P word I love and you need to know about this one too. POWER.

There is a power at work within you that is above anything you can imagine. This power is stronger than anything you could have ever done in the past that you now regret. It’s also stronger than anything you didn’t do in the past that you regret not doing. This power is stronger.

Ephesians 3:20 tells us about this power: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.”

This power at work within you can cut right through the lies you’ve told yourself and the stories you’ve believed. You believed you were unworthy. You thought you could never change. You surrendered to the defeat and here you’ve sat with a broken heart that believes this is all there is for you. And here is the power to tear down those walls now. The walls that have held you in, trapped in a life you dread waking up to. There’s so much more for you now.

God showed us in the bible how he can break chains and shake open prison doors to set people free. That was his power at work, and that same power is now working in you. The power at work within you can break all the chains. The chains of every bad habit, and yes that includes your bad habit. That one you don’t talk about because you fear if anyone ever knew your truth you would be judged. God knows. He knows all about that chain my sister. And more than anything it breaks his heart because he knows how it has held you back. You may keep that habit in the dark, but your God isn’t afraid of the dark. He is here to invade every dark corner of your life and unleash the power to set you free now.

The enemy tries to convince you it’s just who you are, accept it. But if you have to hide it, are you accepting it? No. Because you can’t accept something that God never created you for. It’s a foreign object in your life. It doesn’t fit. Hiding and eating in secret doesn’t fit. Watching those things in secret doesn’t fit. Talking to him in secret doesn’t fit. Smoking in secret doesn’t fit. Entertaining those thoughts in secret doesn’t fit. Spending that money in secret doesn’t fit. Creating those lies in secret doesn’t fit. Going there, doing that, saying that, it doesn’t fit. It doesn’t fit because it’s not who you were created to be. This is NOT who you are and it doesn’t have to be who you become.

Anything you’re struggling with can be overcome by the power of God that is working in you. IN YOU. The power of the almighty, the one who created the mountains … don’t you think that power at work within you can move some mountains? Think about that. You’re facing a mountain of an obstacle in your life. The power of the one who formed the mountains is inside of you now. I think that mountain can move. And if God chooses not to move it, I know his power within you can strengthen you to climb it! You can overcome this. It will tower over you no longer.

It was the power of God that allowed his son Jesus and Peter to walk on the water. Now that power is working in you. In your life. The waves of doubt do not have to consume you. The depths of the unknown do not have to worry you. Inside of you is the power to calm those waves. And if God chooses not to calm the waves, within you is the power to walk right on top of them.

You know, that’s one of the things I’ve come to love most about God’s word. He presents us the scenario of calming the waves as well as the scenario of walking right on top of the stormy sea. He presents us the scenario of the sick being healed and the scenario of overcoming great loss after someone dies. He shows us how to receive the answer yes and the answer no. How to handle both success and failure. How walk through parted seas or row a boat. How to plant and how to harvest, and how to survive on his miraculous daily provision when there is no harvest.

All of this is the power of God working within us. Everything you need for anything you’re facing, he has supplied it. He’s gone before you. He knows the way. He knows what is required and he has fully equipped you with the power needed.

It is this power, his power, that allows us to discover and live up to our truest and highest potential. There we go, back to that original P word I can’t stop thinking about. POTENTIAL.

What is your potential? What does God see in you? What impact could you make? What legacy could you leave? What life could you live? Who could you become?

There’s nothing the enemy can do about the POWER working within you, that power has already defeated him and he knows it. So what he does instead is attack your potential. He undermines all you CAN be with a question. A question of your value. A question of your worth. A question of your beauty. A question of your strength. A question of your ability.

These are the questions that cause our potential to go untapped. These are the questions of darkness that cause us to shrink back, play little, settle, and assume the position of defeat.

WELL HOW ABOUT WE BRING THAT CRAP TO AN END RIGHT NOW!

Let me remind you exactly who you are. You are God’s prized creation. You are his treasured daughter, his chosen one. And within you he has placed his power. His mountain moving and mountain climbing power alike. His chain breaking, sea parting, disease healing, fully restoring, miraculously overcoming power is in you.

So let me talk to you about your potential. Oh girl, you have no idea! You can’t even begin to imagine what is possible for you. It’s all possible for you because there is nothing impossible for God, and it is his power at work within you.

Believe that. Harness it. Move forward with it!