daily devotional

There’s something growing inside of your right now. The growth within you is fertilized by one thing … CRAP. I’m talking about hardships and struggles. Who has some of that crap in their life right now? Always remember my sister, crap is fertilizer. Literally, manure is fertilizer, look up the definition. Fertilizer makes things grow bigger, stronger, faster and better. So wouldn’t the same be true in your life. A little crap like what you’re going through right now makes you grow bigger, stronger, faster and better.

Romans 8:18 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” This scripture is about what God is growing in you right now through this. Look at these words, don’t miss it … Your present sufferings, meaning all the struggles and frustrations you’re going through right now, are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in you. Revealed IN you. Well isn’t that interesting. There is glory that will be revealed IN you.

We’re not talking about some destination you will pull up to at the end of your life. No, we’re talking about the glory, which means magnificence and great beauty, that is IN you. There is something glorious and beautiful growing in you right now. You may not see it. You may not feel it. But it’s happening. And it’s happening through the hard stuff. You are being made better because of this.

God allows life to touch us so we can learn and grow and reach our potential. Understand, that is what’s IN you. This is what God wants to reveal in you. Your potential. The potential he placed within you when he created you. The vision he had for your life from the beginning. He knows what you’re capable of. He knows the life available to you. He knows just what you could do with the days offered to you. The legacy you could leave, the impact you could make, the possibility you could create. But often times you can’t see it. You can’t see your potential, you just see your present sufferings.

You see the crap and fail to understand it’s fertilizer. You see the fire and fail to see how he is refining you. You feel the hammer and chisel and fail to understand he’s knocking off the lumps to reveal what’s always been inside of you. All you know is it hurts to be chiseled away it. It burns to be so close to the fire. It stinks to be in the middle of all the crap.

The process of reaching your potential is not an easy one, that’s why so few make it.

One day we will stand before our creator and he’ll reveal to us what his vision for our life was, and we’ll see the distance between what we did and what we could have done. The comparison of where we went and where we could have gone. The divide between who we became and who we could have become. And in that moment it will all make sense. With the perspective of heaven, we will understand how what we saw crap was fertilizer, what we thought was just suffering was the refining fire, we will see the hammer and the chisel were freeing us.

Oh my sister, what you have WITHIN you is so magnificent and beautiful. There’s glory inside of you and it’s called your God given potential. How bad do you want to live up to it? How bad do you want to taste the life truly available to you? You see, I want to get to heaven and have my creator show me his vision for my life and it be parallel to the life I chose to live. I want the gap between the two to be so minimal you have to use a magnifying glass. Don’t you want the same?

I don’t have time for regret here on Earth and I don’t want an ounce of it in Heaven. I know you feel the same. You don’t want to regret the life you lived. You don’t want to look back and realize you played it safe and missed out on all God had available to you. You don’t want to come to the end of your days and see the suffering was just a waste. You want something to show for the hardships, right? You want to do more than just survive, you want to thrive, right?

Jesus said in John 10:10 that he came so that you might have life and have it more abundantly. The New Living Translation says “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” Not just eternity in paradise, but a rich and satisfying life here on Earth. Not a little life, but a BIG Life!

You have no idea how God is working on your behalf. What’s coming tomorrow may blow your mind, don’t you want to see what it is?

I’ve worked with a lot of amazing people who’ve come to the end of their rope, convinced life isn’t worth living. They just want to go to sleep and not wake up again. They’re checking out on life, ready for it to end. And it never fails, a few months later, sometimes even a few short weeks later something happens in their life that is absolutely beautiful and we say “wow, aren’t you glad you get to be here to experience this.” Their answer … yes, I wouldn’t want to miss it.

Someone listening today is in that “present suffering” this scripture warns us of. Someone feels overwhelmed by the darkness of it all. Let me speak to you. There is potential within you for a glorious, beautiful life. Don’t give up on it. Beautiful things await you. Beautiful things that are so amazing you won’t be able to compare your present sufferings with. Jesus came so that you might have a rich and satisfying life and he’s working all the details together to bring you to that place, you just can’t give up on the way there.

Today we lessen the gap. We lessen the gap between how we’re choosing to live and how we COULD be living. We’re lessening the gap between who we have been and who we COULD be. We’re lessening the gap between the little bit of life we’ve been tapping into and all that is available to us.

Your God is for you and not against you. He’s not sitting on his throne throwing down torture watching you like a tiny ant wandering around aimlessly. No, he’s working to reveal the glory in you. The potential he placed within you from the beginning. Yes, through piles of crap, refining fires, and the hammer and chisel which work away at you, all for a greater purpose of helping you live a life that is so worth living.