Your Fullest Potential

I will never forget the words he said to me. One reason is that they are written in a book he gifted me. During the summer of 1997, I traveled with the late Bishop Michael Lee Graves to Garden Grove, CA. We attended the late Dr. Robert Schuller’s conference, Your Church Has a Fantastic Future. I purchased my copy of the book Your Church Has A Fantastic Future. On the plane returning, Bishop Graves requested to see my book. I gave it to him, and minutes later, he returned. It wasn’t until I returned home that I read what he had inscribed in the book. These are the words:

Breonus, my Son, do not let anything or anyone, including yourself, prevent you from reaching your fullest potential.

What powerful words! I wish I could say that I have held up to that challenge. But there have been times when I haven’t. Some of those times were due to things beyond my control. But, more than often, it was my fault. Are you performing at your fullest potential?

Luke 9:40 is a sad moment for those Jesus had called. A father’s only son has a spirit that seizes him; he shrieks, and it throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth, severely bruising him. He brings his son to the disciples, begging them to cast out the spirit, but THEY COULD NOT! According to Luke 9:1-6, Jesus had prepared them, and they were “bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.” But in this moment, they failed.

I return to this miracle often because it exposes my performance. Why do we fail to perform at our fullest potential? I think it is because we approach things with the business-as-usual mindset. The disciples didn’t recognize that demon possession is not a disease. They attempted to perform the same practices they used for diseases on a demon or spirit. I am not writing about demon possession. I am writing about how often we fail to perform at our fullest potential because we approach new challenges as business as usual.

I am learning that fresh wind is what I need more in this season of my life. The danger is that the late Myles Monroe said, “Whenever something has worked in times past, we like to keep it.” What worked in the past or other situations will not work in every case. I want to encourage you to perform at your fullest potential by having discernment for your current situation. There is so much more God wants to do through you, but you can’t use yesterday’s practices.

This Stinks

Today, my wife and I serve as chaperones for my ten-year-old’s trip to the Nashville Zoo. Last night, before going to bed, she asked, “Why would you sign me up for this field trip? You know I’m not too fond of the outdoors. You know I don’t like animals. And, besides that, zoo’s stink.” Zoo’s stink. 

At times, life stinks. Inflation. Cancer. Politics. Relationships. Divorce.Government Shut-dpwns. Unemployment.  At times, life stinks.

There are times when life stinks because of circumstances beyond our control. Then, there are times when life stinks because of our poor choices and decisions. How’s life? Does it stink?

I know I am not the only one who has experienced a situation that made you sick. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. These moments are often worse when your decisions and choices are responsible. I’ve been sick to my stomach. I know you have been sick to your stomach. There is nothing worse than the stench from your bad decisions. 

Then, days later, when the odor is not as intense, you see the grace of God during those moments. I think God intentionally places us in stinky situations so that we might clean ourselves, ridding us of foul decisions. The stench is better than separation. The stench is better than dying. 

Someone else I knew was in a stinky place – Jonah. “The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah up. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days (1:17).” Jonah is in a stinky situation because of his poor choice. He told God no. And yet, the fish was a provision of the mercy of God on his life. Jonah should have died when he was thrown overboard. 

But the Lord provided . . . .

I am learning that sometimes, when life stinks, God gets my attention. But not only getting my attention but, at times, protecting me from myself. The Lord provides stinky situations not for our demise but for our development and deliverance.

I know it stinks, but it could be worse. 

I Fed The Rabbit

I prepared my morning coffee and then hurried to the deck to read. Not just anything. I am franticly trying to finish some books before my last doctoral residency. There I sat . . . cloudy skies . . . a fresh cool and crisp wind . . . and the consoling atmosphere of the morning. And there he was . . . the rabbit. We have this rabbit that refuses to leave our yard. It has become bold and brave and no longer runs away when humanity’s presence threatens its territory. No. It stays. It looks up and then returns to grazing. Unbothered. Unmoved.

Why?

I fed him. Yes. So, one morning I found the rabbit close to our deck, and I rushed to the kitchen to retrieve some carrots. I fed the rabbit. The child in me that had been buried by life and adulthood escaped that morning. I fed the rabbit. Now, this rabbit has become bold and brave and no longer runs away when the presence of humanity threatens its territory. No. It stays. It looks up and then returns to grazing. Unbothered. Unmoved. I fed the rabbit again this morning. We have this strange relationship now.

Rabbits are prey species, the animals that other animals catch and eat. Therefore, rabbits naturally hide from things that scare them. I fed the rabbit. I am no longer a predator to the rabbit but rather a resource.

Why?

Unknowing to me, the Holy Spirit was using the rabbit as a disguise to challenge me about being hospitable. Genesis 19 reads, “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No, we will spend the night in the square.” But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, baked unleavened bread, and ate.” Lot offers Hospitality to some unknown and unnamed men. He is not moved to extend Hospitality because he knows they are angels but extends Hospitality. After all, being hospitable is who he is. Lot reminds us to be cautious as to how we treat people. Hebrews 13:2 reads, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it (NRSVUVE).” All I am trying to say to each of us is this, be careful how you treat people.

The spiritual gift of Hospitality is the most needed gift for today. We live in an era characterized by prejudice, racism, sexism, and social injustice. What if we just made being hospitable our mandate for today? If I can feed a rabbit, I can show the same care and concern for others even though we may have opposing political and theological opinions. Henri Nouwen said, “Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”

Seeing God Through Shattered Glass

On Tuesday morning, September 27, 2022, I received a text message: “I just got a call from St. Thomas. They believe they have a kidney for me. They are cross-typing now, and I should know in 30 minutes or so. If it matches completely, I will be on my way to get a transplant tonight. Keep your fingers crossed and prayers up.” My fingers were crossed, and my prayers were going up. It was from Deacon Thomas Shannon. Thomas had waited for this call for years. On Tuesday morning, he finally received the call he had been waiting for for years.           

Thomas and I met as high school freshmen at Donelson Christian Academy in 1987. Not only did Thomas and I graduate from DCA in the class of 1991, but I married Thomas and Karen in 2002. After the ceremony, Thomas followed Karen and became a member of my former church, Greater Grace. There, he was ordained as a deacon and served as Chairmen of the Deacon’s Ministry and Vice-President of the Board of Trustees from 2008-2016. He and I had many private and personal conversations, particularly with the decision to accept the call to become the pastor of Mount Gilead and as he faced his own circumstances. But on Tuesday morning, he finally received the call he had been waiting for for years.              

However, on Wednesday evening, I was called to St. Thomas West Hospital after receiving a text message from Karen at 8:56 pm that read, “Thomas has bleeding on the brain. Don’t expect him to make it through the night.” I hurried to St. Thomas and stood by his bedside of Thomas. My friend. My Chairmen. My classmate. Thomas transitioned with his wife, mother, brother-in-law, cousin, and me by his bedside. Disappointed. Disheartened. Devastated. 

What do you do, when you finally come to the realization that this is not going to turn out the way you expected? What do you do when death is inevitable regardless of your hope and prayers? What do you do when the marriage is just not going to survive? What do you do when the money is just not there and you have been a faithful tither? What do you do when things do not turn out the way you expected.

Let me just say, you are not alone. There was a group of men who had been faithful, sacrificial, and obedient to Jesus Christ. I mean, they left home and family to follow him. And, after immediately addressing the needs of 5000 strangers, Jesus failed to come to the rescue of these disciples immediately. All night on a boat, in a storm. The disciples expected to simply get in the boat and go to the other side. And then it happened. A storm. What in your life isn’t going to be the way you expected it?

Has your glass been shattered? It happens and it will happen again. Be encouraged – shattered glass doesn’t shatter our Savior He is still in control.

RETIREMENT

You can’t attend most funerals without hearing Paul’s words to Timothy being read or preached. You know, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing (2 Timothy 4:7-8).” And, while these verses are comforting and consoling during times of grief, this is not the most appropriate context. Why? Because the one writing these words has not gone to eternal rest but to an earthly retirement.

Ok. So here is what I am saying. Paul is not dead. He has not died. He is alive. He is reminiscing on his life given to ministry and spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is sharing, not the words of a dying man but the words of a retiring man. He is a retiring man that can celebrate that he has completed his purpose and now that purpose can be trusted to the hands of his protege.

For me, these verses speak to me now! While I am alive. While I have purpose. These verses are asking me, “how consistent and committed am I to my purpose?” Nothing just happens sitting around waiting for something to happen. What am I finishing? What are you finishing? How can you eliminate distractions and get somethings finished before you are finished?

QUIT MAKING EXCUSES

“The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat.”Proverbs 13:4

Life gets better only for those that make up their minds to do something different.  I am suggesting that you have the responsibility to take advantage and seize the moment whenever windows of opportunity are within your reach.  While the promises of God are to those who cannot help themselves; moreover and throughout scripture, the promises of God are to those that are trying to help themselves. The women with the issue of blood pressed her way through the crowd. At the tomb of Lazarus, the stone had to be rolled away. Andrew brought the lunch to Jesus in order that the multitude might be fed. The tragedy of most individuals is that we have the spirit of laziness, excuse, and procrastination. However, “Opportunities of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity” because nothing just happens.

Are you the individual who continues to make excuses in the place of taking action? If you are, how is that working? Here is the truth, if what you having been doing has only given you the results you have been getting, then why are you still doing what you have been doing? Quit making excuses and choose to do something different.

It is easy to complain. It is easy to be critical.What doesn’t come easy is to choose to do something different. Instead of making wishfully wanting your marriage to change, you could be intentional by sending intimate text messages, buying a card, or being consistent with date night. Instead of hoping for a financial breakthrough, you could begin to trust God by tithing and living on a budget. Instead of seeing your health continue to face issues after issues, you could change your eating habits and exercise.

Here is the point, stop making excuses and do something different. It isn’t just going to happen. You have to be intentional about making it happen.

Stop Wasting Time

And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He told the vineyard worker, ‘Listen, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it even waste the soil?’ “But he replied to him, ‘Sir, leave it this year also, until I dig around it and fertilize it. Perhaps it will produce fruit next year, but if not, you can cut it down.’” Luke 11:6-9

For 38 terrifying minutes, Saturday morning, January 14, 2018, many Hawaii residents spent hunkered in bathtubs and basements waiting for a ballistic missile strike that never came. The panic ensued after the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency mistakenly sent out an alert that warned residents of an imminent ballistic missile strike and urged them to “seek immediate shelter.” “This is not a drill,” the ominous, all-caps push alert blared on people’s phones.

Lori Citro, whose daughter was in Hawaii said: “I had a total meltdown at the restaurant sobbing crying and barely able to read the rest of the messages,” Citro said in a Facebook post. “The good-byes, ‘I love yous’.” “My daughter was going to die, today, alone,” Citro remembers thinking. “I wanted to run from the restaurant and fly to Hawaii to be with her.”

A text message from one unnamed person to another on September 11, 2001, after an apparent break-up and getting back together read: “Honey, wanted to tell you how much I love you. I was a little worried. I don’t want to lose you now that I got you back. You mean everything to me. You have my whole heart and life. I love you so much.”

What would you do if you knew you had only today left to live? What if you knew that you had only today to make up for wrongs done and opportunities missed? How important might today be?

God’s gift to us is time and our stewardship of that time is our gift to Him in return.

How much of your time is spent on the worthwhile?

The amount of time people spend on social media is constantly increasing. According to http://www.socialmediatoday.com, teens now spend up to nine hours a day on social platforms. Astonishingly, the average person will spend nearly two hours (approximately 116 minutes) on social media every day, which translates to a total of 5 years and 4 months spent over a lifetime. That is five years of our lives that yield no return.

How can you use today to be more productive and beneficial? Something to think about, huh?

Behind Closed Doors Matters

John Gruden had a spotless resume. He won two division titles and led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to their first Super Bowl title in Super Bowl XXXVII in 2002. At age 39, he was the then-youngest head coach to win the Super Bowl. However, all of that changed when a leaked email revealed he had used email in which he used a racist trope to describe DeMaurice Smith, the head of the N.F.L. Players Association. The New York Times revealed Gruden had denounced the emergence of women as referees, the drafting of a gay player, and the tolerance of players protesting during the playing of the national anthem, according to emails reviewed by The Times.[1] When Gruden thought was not known to everyone, was known to someone. It cost him his career.

Jesus warns against the covert and concealed actions and conversations of the Pharisees by telling them in Luke 12:2-3, “Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops (ESV).”[2] Jesus warns us that what we think is unknown to everyone is always known to someone.

What have you done that could ruin your credibility and integrity? How do you handle life when you know your conduct in your private walk contradicts your public witness? Or, the BIG question, can those you love and love you trust you when they are not around?

Paul challenged the Philippine believers saying, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Paul calls on the Philippians to “work out” their salvation. This call, however, is set within the context of obedience, an obedience that has, according to Paul, always been characteristic of the Philippians. It is important to recognize Paul is not calling them from disobedience to obedience. Rather, he urges a continuation of the obedience they have displayed. What is your reputation? Do you have a reputation for walking in obedience? It is hard to trust someone to be what they have never been before, and it is hard to trust someone to do what they have never done before. Does your reputation keep getting in your way?

Your reputation is really all that matters. I want to encourage you to live a life in such a way that others trust you. Remember, someone is always watching.

Life As An Offering

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. Col. 3:23-24

One of the fallacies and failures of our culture is that we often interpret offerings as something financial. You know, it’s the giving of our tithes and offerings. Most of us no longer complete an envelope and place our offerings in a basket as it comes down our row. We simply go to an app and give our offerings electronically. But, again, the point I want to make is that we limit the word offerings to the money we give to the church in the form of a tithe or offering.

In the Bible, however, offerings were not only financial; they were sacrificed so that God might receive the glory. The Apostle Paul saw himself as an offering. He said, “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come (2 Timothy 2:4).” He saw his life as a gift for the benefit of others.

What if you changed ‘how’ you do life by making everything as an offering to the Lord? The phrase “as for the Lord” is offertorial and sacrificial language. Here is the point, when our “how” becomes an offering, it changes everything. What if, today, I began to see my marriage, parenting, preaching, teaching, pastoring, blogging, podcasting, my company or business as an offering to God? The truth is that everything we do is an offering, just as the giving of our finances. 

It will change everything when you begin to see everything as an offering. Have you been a good steward of your finances? Have you been a good steward of your family? Have you been a good steward of your health? Have you been a good steward of your Christian commitment?

The question has been, “how do I change ‘how’ I go about doing life?” You simply change how you do marriage, parenting, preaching, pastoring, and life when you make it an offering. Because of how you did life today, will you hear God say to you tonight, “Well done good and faithful _____________.? He only says well done when we make our how an offering. And when it becomes an offering – you want to be good and faithful to what you are.

Changing Your How

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. I Peter 2:9-10

The Nashville Sit-Ins which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were among the earliest non-violent direct-action campaigns in the 1960s to end racial segregation in the South. And, they were the first campaigns to desegregate lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign was coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council which was made up primarily of students from Fisk University, American Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tennessee State University. Diane Nash and John Lewis who were both students at Fisk University emerged as the major leaders of the local movement. There actions helped change the world.

What was one of the lessons of the Nashville sit-in’s? In the words of Pauline Knight-Ofuso, one of the lessons of the Nashville sit-ins was that when “you don’t like the conditions, you do what is required.”

I read a quote yesterday that said, “the #1 cause of divorce is marriage.” I disagree. The #1 cause of divorce is how we do marriage. In fact, the #1 cause of most of our issues in life is how we life. What if today, you simply changed your how and not your what? What if what you are is God’s will for your life? It is God’s will for you to be married, a parent, a teacher, a leader, a friend, or whatever. So, if married, parent, teacher, friend, leader, employee is what God has called you to be, then changing how you live that out is the most important factor right now.

You see, ‘how’ reveals who we really are. You can’t change that you are a parent. But, what if you changed how you do parenting. We change our what because often we aren’t mature or courageous enough to change our how. Changing your what is the simple way out. But changing how you do life is the more mature way.

Civil Rights was simply chaining how life was going to be lived. Those students could not change what they were – Black. However, they could and did change how to live Black in America. All I am asking of you is this, stop focusing on the what you are (married, parent, preacher, manager, teacher, etc.). Focus today on how you are going to be better at living out what you are.

It isn’t what you are but how you are going about doing it that has you frustrated, stressed, angry and bitter. Change your how and you will change your life.