Becoming All God Wants You to Be

Have you reached your full potential? Do you even know what you are capable of? Do you know what God, the Creator of the Universe, the One who sees all and knows all, wants to do through you?

God wants us to reach our potential. He wants us—and we ought to want it, too—to be all we can be.

Anyone can half-step; anyone can be mediocre; anyone can be run-of-the mill; you don’t have to do much to do that. God is saying we can do more than that, more than give just enough. Fully blooming, thriving, is what God wants for every human being.

As Children of God, our job is to help the Kingdom of God flourish on this earth. The Kingdom has already come—it came in Jesus Christ; but God wants us to spread his Kingdom throughout the world.

And, what better way for that to happen, what better way for the Kingdom of God to mushroom, than for each of us to reach our God-given potential, than for each of us to become all that God calls us to be?

That’s what God wants. That’s what He is looking for from you... Not half measures but full potential from everyone one of us who call ourselves His followers. Now, since we know that is what God wants, how do we do that? How do we become all God wants us to be?

In John 21:3, we find these words: Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘We will go with you.’ They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Now, most of the time, when we look at this portion of the text, we generally see the negative side of this incident: they didn’t catch anything after fishing all night. But, I want to draw to your attention this: at least they knew what they wanted; at least they knew why they were out on the Sea of Tiberias.

A wife went to the police station with her next-door neighbor to report that her husband was missing. The policeman asked for a description. She said, "He's 35 years old, 6 foot 4, has dark eyes, dark wavy hair, an athletic build, weighs 185 pounds, soft-spoken, and good to the children."

The next-door neighbor protested, "Your husband is 5 foot 4 inches, chubby, bald, has a big mouth, and is mean to your children." The wife replied, "Yes, but who wants HIM back?”

In the process of becoming all God wants you to be, you have to get to a point in your life where you know what God wants for you. You have to have some goals (short- and long-term aims that you want to accomplish) and objectives (concrete achievements that you can accomplish by following a certain number of steps.)

Some folk don’t know what God wants for them—the steps He wants them to take to reach their destiny. From the burning bush, what it is God is calling you to do? Why did you get up this morning? Why are you on your job—because you need money, because you need to pay your bills? Is that the only reason?

You have to know what God wants for you, know why you do what you do. If you don’t know what God wants for you, then someone can come along and offer you anything, and you will take it. How should you go about deciding why God placed you on this earth at this moment in time? What is God calling you to do, is really the question.

To help you discover the answer(s)—it could be more than one thing—what God is calling you to do (your purpose), for the next several weeks, I want you to start keeping a journal and write the answers in that journal to the following questions. As you answer these questions, you will begin to see a common thread, a common answer(s), that runs throughout your journey as a result of answering the questions. These common answers will give you a clue to what God is calling you to do—what He wants to do through you.

Don’t rush this process. Pray, then answer the questions. Pray again, and then answer the questions again. Do this for the next three weeks and watch your purpose emerge.

1. What makes you feel good about you?
2. What are some things you liked to do as you were growing up?
3. What activities make you feel good about yourself?
5. Who are your heroes and heroines? Why?
6. What do you do with ease?
7. When do people say to you, “You are good at that.”?
8. If you could choose to teach any subject, what subject would that be?
9. If God said to you, “____________, next year will be your last year on
Earth”, what five things would you seek to accomplish before that time?

"Before I shaped you in the womb,
I knew all about you.
Before you saw the light of day,
I had holy plans for you… Jeremiah 1:5