23 Apr Maximising Your Leadership Potential
“Let no one despise (look down on your youthfulness), but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity. Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine (teaching). Do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.” 1 Tim. 4:12-16.
The Apostle Paul was saying a lot to Timothy, his disciple, who had taken on leadership responsibilities in the above passage. Amongst other things he is saying to us that we should understand the potentials that lie within us and not to be carried away by externals; to give ourselves to the aspects of life that enable us to generate the right kind of influence (leadership); become single minded in our focus as we give ourselves entirely to these things and finally he warns about the potential dangers in the race we are on. These summarise what we are studying in this article.
Understanding The Potential Principle
Almost everything that God created has the ability to undergo changes that can cause something else to be born. This is because the Creator designed His creation with potentials to reproduce and become the raw material for another. What God speaks to is the source for what He creates and all things have the same components and essence as the sources from which they come. For example in Genesis 1:11, God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth and it was so.” The earth here had potentials to produce grass, herbs, fruits and seeds. If you saw the dry land called earth just before God said it should bring all these forth, there is no way you would know it had the ability to produce such. God who created the earth knew what He had built into it (potentials) so He called forth and the hidden abilities of the earth were awakened by the voice of the Creator! The same can be seen of the seas as creatures were brought forth from it too. See Genesis 1:20-25. The earth also brought forth living creatures. All things must be maintained by the sources from which they came.
It is worthy of note to realise that everything that came out of something else depended on the thing it came out of. Grass depends on the earth for its nutrients. The living creatures also depend on the earth for its food. The things that were brought forth also had potentials to reproduce after their kind. God is really omnipotent! Full of potentials! When God was to create mankind He made us out of Himself and in the same way we need to depend on God for our sustenance. Every disconnection from source has the potential to cause death. Since God is a Spirit, when we became disconnected we were termed spiritually dead though physically alive. So we see that every created thing has potentials but man has great and almost unlimited potentials as we were created in the image and likeness of the omnipotent God. The earth produces the grass and herbs according to the Word of the Lord. The herb has fruit and the fruit has seed and the seed has the potentials to repeat the cycle as it enters the earth to reproduce the grass and herb again. The seed of everything is in itself. The potential principle simply states that, given the right conditions and process, the seed can reproduce itself. You have untapped potentials. As you yield yourself to God’s Word and process, you can reproduce your qualities in others. There is more to your life than meets the natural eye.
Would you like to develop your potentials?
There may be music in you yet to be tapped. Who knows if you carry solutions to many of life’s problems within you? There are untapped abilities within you waiting for your decision to develop them.
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