This past week, I’ve prayed the same prayer daily. “God, show me the limitations I’ve settled for so I can overcome them. Reveal to me my potential so I can grow into it.” The past 2 nights in a row, I’ve woke up praying this prayer in my sleep.

Just how bad do you want to overcome the limitations you’ve settled for? Just how bad do you want to live up to the potential God has put within you? When you want it bad enough, it’s there for you, but action will be required.

We all have tremendous potential within us, and we all have something threatening to cripple that potential. I wonder what your potential is. Your unique design is for the purpose of being absolutely phenomenal in some way. The thing is, you may not have even discovered it yet, but the potential is still inside of you. Your creator is using every detail of your life to release that potential.

Lord, reveal the potential you put within us so we can grow into it! I’m no longer satisfied with settling for anything less.

Is that where you are? You’re tired of settling for less? You’re no longer satisfied with just getting by? THAT’S FANTASTIC! WHAT A WONDERFUL PLACE OF AWAKENING YOU FIND YOURSELF IN!

All this time, you’ve had a world of potential within you, but it has been crippled. It’s been held back and unable to perform it’s full intended function. What has crippled your potential?

I know about being crippled. Today, our travels have brought us back to the specific place where I literally COULDN’T get out of bed. My legs no longer worked. I couldn’t feed myself. My arms no longer worked. I couldn’t speak. My mouth drooped and words could not be found. My brain had suffered injury in a stroke and I was crippled. All that I had once done with ease was gone in an instant.

And I’m back here in Savannah, Georgia. This is where that hospital bed was that held me. It held me crippled, but I was still FULL OF POTENTIAL. I can’t help being here in this city without remembering that hospital bed. I can’t be here without remembering how crippled I was laying there.

But I’m not laying there any more!

You want to know why I’m jarringly excited about a new day of life every darn day, THIS IS WHY! (Several years ago, someone left a review of this podcast on iTunes saying they couldn’t handle my morning pep and referred to me as jarring. I still love that review! I appreciate her honesty and it still makes me giggle. I am jarring, but dang I can’t be boring after what I experienced!)

Want to know why I have crazy energy the moment my feet hit the floor every morning, THIS IS WHY! By God’s grace and divine touch, I’ve overcome the thing that threatened to cripple me and I’m getting to experience my potential.

I get to see these once crippled legs can run marathons. I get to see this body that once couldn’t get out of bed can now climb mountains. These eyes that once went blind and couldn’t focus get to see the beauty of the horizon as I jump out of an airplane at 14,000 feet. These hands that couldn’t hold a spoon to feed myself can hold a paddle while whitewater rafting. And this mouth that couldn’t form words can now speak to thousands to help them wake up. Literally … wake up!

Yes, wake up. We’ve been sleeping while our potential lies within in wait. Wake up, my sister.

This was always my potential, but you couldn’t see it when I was crippled. I couldn’t even imagine it at the time, but it was there.

Now, let’s talk about your potential. Oh girl, there is a world of potential inside of you. How do I know? Because I know your creator. As a follower of Christ, I know the spirit who now lives within you. There’s no question of the potential in you. No stronghold could hold you back. No chain can bind you. No darkness can put out your light … unless you let it!

Remember the story of the crippled man laying at the pool of Bethesda? He had been crippled for 38 years. He was laying by this pool of water because every day when the pool was stirred, it was believed the first person to get in the water would be healed. Day after day he lay there, hoping for a healing. Hoping to overcome that which had crippled him. But he couldn’t pull himself into the water before the others, so years passed as nothing changed.

That is, until Jesus showed up.

Nothing has been changing for you, my sister … but Jesus is about to show up where you have been stuck!

John 5: 6-9 “When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?” “I can’t sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.” Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!” Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking.

This man always had the potential inside of him. For 38 years he lay there crippled, yet the potential to walk again remained. One thing unleashed his potential once again … an encounter with Jesus.

My sister, that’s all you need. An encounter with Jesus.

That’s the undeniable power that met me in that hospital bed here in Savannah, Georgia and unleashed my potential again … It was Jesus!

There will always be a threat to your potential. A crippling of all you were created to do. Yes, sometimes in comes in the form of a health issue, but more commonly it is a fear of failure that holds you back.

I’m going to be honest with you, my own fears and thoughts have held me back far more than my health issues ever did. Jesus has had to show up and heal me more than once!

It’s a fear of judgment that keeps you cornered. An overwhelming concern of what others may think or may say. A past regret, guilt or shame. An unhealed hurt. Or maybe if you’re being honest it’s a laziness deep inside of you that cripples you most. An unwillingness to stick with things long enough to actually work. A wishy washy commitment that always leaves you going backward instead of forward. A bad habit you keep picking back up.

So I ask again, what is crippling your potential? What has you stuck where you are living a life less than you were created for?

Jesus is asking you the same question as the crippled man at the pool of water, “WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET WELL?”

Think about that. Of course your knee jerk reaction is “yes”. But what would getting well cost you?

It would strip you of any pity you’ve received in the past. Let’s face it, pity is a powerful drug. Playing pitiful gets us what we want immediately and gives us the ultimate excuse from pushing any harder.

Are you willing to give up playing the pity card? I mean really, you’re not the only one who has gotten sick, or gone through divorce, or had a wayward child, experienced loss, or going through a ridiculously hard time. I don’t intend to sound harsh, but me offering you pity does nothing more than cripple you more.

Would you like to get well? I promise you the potential within you is far greater than any pity you could settle for.

There’s no doubt Jesus healed my body. There’s no medical explanation for the things my body can do after the stroke I had. But I want to tell you about my young, newlywed husband. At the time I was 19 and he was 21. We were all alone, over a thousand miles from any family. And he offered me POWER over PITY.

Not one time did he feel sorry for me. Not once did he come in and save me from doing the simple things that were now so difficult for me. Not once did he let me lay in bed and wallow in what had happened to me. He helped me see I could be powerful, or I could be pitiful, but I couldn’t be both.

I chose POWER, and it’s made a world of difference.

When we choose pity in our pitiful situation, we are essentially telling Jesus, “nahhhh, I’ll just stay here.” Would you like to get well? “Not today, you see being pitiful allows me to sit here and put forth no effort of my own.”

How about that encounter with Jesus to unleash your potential? How about overcoming the thing that has threatened to cripple you? Are you ready? I mean really ready? Because just as the man at the pool had to stand up and give up his position of pity for 38 years, you’re going to have to give up a few things too.

Honey, of course you can’t be healthy drinking your Diet Dr Pepper and eating your ice cream. Honey, of course you can’t live in financial freedom with all 20 of your monthly subscriptions to absolute nonsense. Honey, of course you can’t be happily married as you dabble in flirty conversations and dream of greener grass.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET WELL?

There’s something you need to do here. There’s a threat to your God given potential. Identify it and don’t settle for being crippled here! Partner with Jesus and follow him as you rise up and step into the potential for your great big beautiful life.

God, show me the limitations I’ve settled for so I can overcome them. Reveal to me my potential so I can grow into it.

Follow Pamela on Instagram – https://instagram.com/headmamapamela
Or Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pamela.crim
Find out more about BIG Life – http://biglifehq.com