daily devotional

Potential. It’s my personal word for 2020. My focus is to live up to my God given potential and guide others to realize their own. All the potential for the life you most desire is right inside of you. It’s there because God put it there. And your desires are there because God put the real ones there too, guiding you to your purpose. You are purpose filled my sister, and where there is purpose, there is all the potential necessary to make it a reality. Purpose and potential are partners in your destiny.

So you have all this potential to fulfill your purpose, and then here’s God with all his power. All his power to make things happen. All his power to move mountains and break chains, power to tear down walls and part seas, power to calm storms and power to miraculously provide. But not everyone is experiencing this power in their lives.

And here’s why: We will never know the awesome power of God until we go all-in.
We don’t get to see the full effect of God’s power when we’re holding back.
When we’re playing little in life.
When all we seek is safety and security, we don’t get to see God directed success.

Where are you holding back? What do you need to surrender?

Many years ago I knew God was offering me an opportunity to step up to the next level of living. But here’s the thing about those next levels, they’re freaking scary! The next level is the unknown, and when you step up you’re leaving behind what you had. I wanted what God was offering, but you see it would require me to loosen my grip on all I had worked hard to build. We had built a mortgage business to be proud of. We earned major bucks and those major bucks bought really really pretty things. I liked all my pretty things.

And then God called me away from it. He offered me purpose over possessions. He offered me passion over a paycheck. And the scariest thing is he offered me impact over insurance. I could step up to this next level and make a bigger impact on lives, however we would have to forfeit our provided insurance. Ya’ll let me tell you the behind the scenes stuff of going all-in with God … we paid over $1800 per month for our own medical insurance. And while God didn’t miraculously give us that insurance for free or provide overnight success, God provided exactly what was needed to make it work … when we worked.

Now it required us to sacrifice, but all the good stuff does. We sold the big beautiful house with the beautiful swimming pool, and we moved into a 1500 square foot cottage with a 500 square foot backyard. We sold the fancy furniture and decided to embrace empty rooms. We didn’t go to the movie theater for nearly a full year because taking a family of 5 to the movies was an entire week’s grocery budget.

But let me tell you what diving all-in gave us … it gave us a life beyond our wildest imagination. It gave us struggles that strengthened us. It gave us peace and patience, and a front row seat to the grace and power of God!

So let me say it again, We will never know the awesome power of God until we go all-in.
We will never know what was truly possible in our lives as long as we’re tip-toeing in the waters.
We will never, ever reach our full God-given potential standing on the shore second guessing everything.

God is calling YOU, yes you, to an all-in life. He’s calling you to dive. No more splish-splashing around in this life you have been given. It’s time to dive all-in to the life you were created for, BIG TIME!

Steven Curtis Chapman has an older song called Dive. It says:

I’m diving in, I’m going deep, in over my head I want to be
Caught in the rush, tossed in the flow, in over my head I want to go
The river’s deep, the river’s wide, the river’s water is alive
So sink or swim, I’m diving in

Could everything you’ve gone through been for the purpose of bringing you right here to the edge where you’re faced with a decision to either stand there or dive in? This is where life has brought you. To the edge.

Now, you can stand here at the edge for all the rest of your days, peering over and wondering. Wondering what it would look like to be caught in the rush of God’s love, to be tossed in the flow of his power, to be in over your head in his grace, where your days are deep and wide and truly alive. Do you want to wonder, or do you want to experience?

Are you ready to experience what it’s like to be fully alive in 2020? Yes? Then it’s time to dive all-in! All-in in 2020.

In John 10:10 Jesus says “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Jesus came for you so that you could have life to the full. An abundant life. A life overflowing.

And what should your response be? Ahhhh, “I’ll take just a little thank you” or “maybe later Jesus”?

That’s absurd! No!

Jesus says girl I came so that you could have this big, beautiful, abundant overflowing life and our response MUST be, “AWESOME, I’M ALL IN!”

God I want it all. I want every good thing you have available to me. I want every beautiful experience you’re offering. I want every day of life. I want every sunrise. I want every adventure. I want it all.

And God says, “awesome, I want your all too.”

Matthew 22: 37 says “You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind.” Not a little bit. Not just a piece of you. All of you. This is what God wants and this is how he has been using every single good thing and every single seemingly bad thing in your life to bring you to this place of full surrender where you will go all-in with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. Where you decide to hold nothing back.

Will you sell out for God? Will you believe with every ounce of you that he is for you and not against you? Will you believe without wavering that no weapon formed against you shall prosper so you have no reason to fear? Will you trust fully that God’s plans for you are good and you can dive in knowing if you can’t already swim, he will teach you to swim. You will not sink!

But let me warn you … you know what swimming lessons in life feel like? They feel like drowning. You don’t get to take the leap and then float. Nope, not the way it works. I don’t want you to be disappointed in reality, so let me properly prepare you.

We jumped into pursing our passion and creating this thing called “BIG Life”, and the first several years we felt like we were drowning. We hosted events and no one showed up. We talked and no one listened. We created and no one bought. And we struggled. At the time I couldn’t understand why God was allowing us to flail around in the water, choking and struggling. Now I see, it was swimming lessons. We were learning.

And you will likely be subjected to similar swimming lessons if you go all-in. And I can tell you this now that I can swim pretty darn well, it’s worth it! How about in 2020 we stop seeking easy and we go for the hard stuff!

You can’t afford to tip toe around in the waters of life this year. If you do, you will miss what’s truly available to you. You’ve gotta go all-in.

Will you make that commitment right now?
Will you promise yourself that there will be no more holding back in 2020?
Will you commit to taking every opportunity that comes your way in 2020 and run with it?
Will you say yes to life in 2020 so life can say yes to you?
Will you intentionally show up for every new day of life ready and willing to live it to the fullest?

It starts right here.
This is your chance.
This morning you woke up to the 2nd day of a new decade of life.
Here’s your opportunity of a lifetime, will you live it all-in?

If you will, you will experience God’s power at work in your life like never before! And remember, these swimming lessons feel like drowning sessions, but God is preparing you for your all-in life!