It’s easy for someone else to look at you and say – you have some real potential.  But we often don’t feel that way. Me? Potential? Nah. Where would that come from?

It’s great to be with you again at the beginning of a fresh new week, a week that for each one of us is, well, is full of potential, new possibilities, new opportunities.

Okay, some weeks it doesn’t feel like it. But it is true, no matter what life’s thrown at us in the past, no matter what life throw at us today or tomorrow – this week is full of potential. And for me at least it’s really sad when I look at someone who’s got so much potential built into their DNA, you can just see it in them, and yet somehow they’re not realising that potential. Not living it out.

What about you, what about me? What seeds of potential has God planted in our hearts? Are we nurturing those seeds? Are we living life to its fullest potential? Or perhaps, perhaps are we missing it? Let me be really direct, are you living out the full potential for your life?

Most of us, well, we wake up and we look in the mirror and we see ourselves in the glass and we say, “Well I’m nothing special, look at our home, our surroundings, our work, our family, our life, our routine, it’s mundane, it’s ordinary.” Sometimes we even feel locked into our grind, that daily, you know, cranking the handle over. And it’s true, life is 90% routine. But this week on A Different Perspective, I’d like to take a look at the other 10%.

I believe that most people have a whole bunch of untapped potential: creativity; insight; inspiration; ability; gifts; hopes; dreams; plans; things that are untapped; unrealised; dormant; seeds of potential waiting to burst forth. But amongst the daily grind, you know what it’s like, somehow we just get tied up in things and those seeds of potential, they never see the light of day. And so there they lie dormant and waiting.

I know someone is going to say, “Berni, you don’t understand I’m just nothing special, nothing to look at. I don’t have any dormant seeds of potential lying in me.” And I would answer, “On the contrary, you’re the very person, the very one that I’m talking about.”

So this week, on A Different Perspective, let’s get together just over these next five days and look at your life and my life and say, “Wow, what potential do I have that I haven’t really thought about, or realised that I have?” And I’d like to begin that journey today with the opening lines of the best book that I’ve every read. It starts like this: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

What’s that got to do with my potential? When I stop for a minute and I look above my daily grind at the world, at the universe, at the trillions upon trillions of stars, so far apart that it would take me millions of years to travel from one end to the other at the speed of light. And our Earth delicately balanced on its axis, tilted at 23½ degrees so that we get the four seasons – winter, spring, summer, autumn. And incredible variety, maybe you’ve heard me talk about beetles, beetles I’m fascinated with beetles. Do you know how many varieties of beetles there are on this planet; ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, five thousand? Actually there are three hundred and sixty thousand different beetles on the planet.

You look at the trees and the plants and the birds and the fish and the people… my, the people! Six billion of us, alive right now! And not two of them are the same. You look at your hands and you think no one has hands like mine, look at your face in the mirror; no one has a face like yours. Look at your heart; no one has a heart like yours. And when I look at that you know what I see? I see God’s finger print all over it, the whole of creation crying out, “Look at how wonderful God is”, the whole of creation proclaiming the glory of God, the majesty of God.

Sometimes when I go on holidays and I get out of the city and get in the country and you see the valleys and the views and the smells and the sounds and the wonder of God’s creation, how can we miss Him in all of that? Well, the answer is we’re stuck in our grind. We’re so busy doing what we’re doing, sometimes we don’t stop to think about the One who put it all here. I cannot look at creation and think, “Well that was just an accident, just a random collection of particles and atoms and stuff.” I just can’t do that.

Time and time again we see in creation how God stores creative potential in little seeds. Look at the simple dandelion, you know those things we used to pull off as kids and you’d blow the seeds and they’d go everywhere. I mean if you look at a dandelion, it’s a weed, it’s nothing special, but it’s so delicately made. And God picks up those seeds in the wind and blows them, who knows where? And lands and waters them and gives them sunshine and feeds them, bang, a new one grows! Just so that there would be more seeds to be blown by God’s wind to other places so that more would grow. Just in the simple seed of a crummy little weed like a dandelion, God has stored up so much creative potential.

You look at all the animals, look at all the people, it’s the same thing. Here’s a stunning realisation, we have been created by a creative creator. We have been created, by a creative creator! Can we contemplate God’s creativity for just a few minutes? I tell you it’s enough to blow my mind, I short-circuit, you know, it’s just more than I could possibly take in. Just a few lines down from that opening line of that book I just quoted, there’s another line that blows my mind; it says that He created us in His image, both male and female He created us. The book of Genesis Chapter 1 verse 17, “Let us create man in our image.” So He did male and female. God’s incredible creativity has been placed in seeds in you and me because we’re made in His image, we’re like God.

We can’t say human beings are special above all other creation, but we’re not creative. We can’t have it that God created us in His image and then say, “Well I don’t have any potential,” because God created us to have potential. Think about it, we can’t be made in His image if we’re not creative. Let me ask you again, “What are the seeds of creative potential lying dormant in your DNA, in your heart, in your makeup, the ones that haven’t seen the light of day yet?”

We each have such incredible potential put there by God and yep we have a daily grind, I do. People sometimes hear this dulcet voice coming out on the radio and think, “Well you know Berni’s got a pretty good life, he’s got it all together.” I have a daily grind, we all have worries, we all have distractions, we all have pressures and tensions and responsibilities. And amongst all of that we can miss the fact that we have been created in the image of God, to be like Him, to act like Him, to look like Him. And if God has enormous creativity and that potential must be in us.

It is such a sad situation when you see so many people who aren’t living their lives to the fullness of that potential. Can I ask you again the question I began with, “What about you? What’s the potential that God has planted in you, in your fibre, in your DNA?”

I just pray that you will spend some time thinking about that, praying about that and getting excited about that, because you are created by a creative Creator.

We’d all like to think that someday, we’ll reach our full potential.  But we could never be as good as all those other people. I mean, we’re just ordinary people, right?

When I talk to people about reaching their full potential in life, one of the things that I’ve noticed is that by and large people tend to think of this whole reaching their potential, in terms of recognition. We live in a world that suffers from superstar syndrome. We all want to be superstars; you know, the best at this and the best at that. Kids these days all want to be famous, but at some point in our lives we realise that for 99.9% of us that’s just not going to happen.

And because we realise that we’ll never be a Donald Trump or a Greg Norman or a David Beckham, somehow, however subtly, however much we never admit it even to ourselves, deep inside we draw the conclusion that we’re just an ugly duckling. That’s why low self-esteem is one of the greatest emotional maladies of our day. And so we have a whole bunch of incredibly talented, incredibly creative people, walking around kidding themselves, missing out on those incredible seeds of potential that God’s planted in their DNA.

When you look in the mirror in the morning, what do you see? Do you look at who you are, or maybe do you look at who you’re not, compared with other people? We compare ourselves on so many different levels. And the crazy things is when we’re doing that comparison we see our lives and all the weaknesses and all the failures and all the mistakes that we make and we see the other people’s lives and somehow we only see the good bits. You know the really wonderful bits about that person’s life.

And so we’re comparing their good bits with our lousy bits because often we don’t get to know about the lousy bits in their lives because we tend to hide the lousy bits. Men at work, they look at position and status and they see this person’s been promoted earlier than I have and they’re above me. But maybe they don’t see what mess that person has in their personal lives at home.

Or a woman looks at another woman and goes, “Boy she’s beautiful and she’s got nice hair, and her skin’s nice and she wears nicer clothing than I do. She’s so much better looking than me. I wish I was like that.” Yet inside this other woman is being eaten away by low self-esteem and jealousy. Nobody, nobody has their lives 100% together.

And this silly comparative thing that we tend to do right at the heart of ugly duckling syndrome is, as I said, look at the bad bits of our lives, the bits that aren’t working, the bits that are broken the bits that are hurting us, and compare them with selective fantastic bits from other people’s lives. You see what I’m saying?

The Apostle Paul figured that about a couple of thousand years ago in his letter to the church in Rome, Chapter 12, if you want to have a look, in the book of Romans in the New Testament. He says:

Look, have a look in the mirror, and when you do don’t think of yourself too highly or too lowly, but look at yourself with really sober judgment. Look at exactly the gifts and the motivations that God has put into your heart (Romans 12:3)

And he goes on to say,

“You have to understand we’re all different. Some people,” (and these are the gifts that he lists, I’m paraphrasing here,) he says, “some people are good at speaking out. Others are good at teaching, others are really good at serving, you know they’re the ones that always get up after a function and clear the plates because they just naturally want to do that. Others are good at encouraging. Some people are really good at administration, others are natural-born leaders. Some people their gift is actually being givers and others, they’re the people with real compassion that hang in there with you when you need someone to hand in there with you.” And he says, “Look, get a handle on the gifts and the motivations that God has created you with, and enjoy being that person.”

When I look at that list of eight or so gifts, mine are in the area of speaking out and teaching and encouraging, that’s my space. One of our board members asked me just the other day, he said, “Berni, how is it that you dream up and have all these ideas for new programs everyday, day after day, after day, right through the year, year after year, how do you do that?” And I said to him, “Tony, that’s who I am, that’s who God made me, that’s what I’m made to do. And I love doing that, it’s just who I am, it’s in my DNA.”

But, oh, get me to go and be an administrator or a server or someone who hangs in with compassion, give me a job like that, make me the minister of a church and my hunch is I’d be a disaster. And it’s no good me comparing myself with people who have got those gifts saying, “Oh I wish I was like them.” I’m not, and there’s no point in you looking at other people and saying, “I wish I was like them.” You’re not! We’re who God made us to be!

And it’s interesting you know, I used to be a strategic consultant in the information technology game, and that job earned my so much money it was great! It was fabulous! But all along I felt this seed of potential inside me to be doing what I’m doing right here, right now today. And people look at this Berni Dymet who’s on the radio, and they listen to him and think, “Oh that’s great, that’s what he does.”

I have to tell you it was a really radical step to leave that consulting career and a six figure salary and everything to chase this kind of feeling and this calling I had, this sense of some potential that God wanted to use, it was a really radical step. And I’m sure some people that I used to work with and other people who knew me probably think, “Berni went loopy, he went all religious on us.” But it was just a knowledge of this seed that God planted in my heart. And the nice thing is that when we follow that, when we give those seeds air and light and water and space to grow, then what we discover is that we’re truly living life to the full.

I would imagine that a woman who is married to a man and they decide to have kids and maybe it’s a bit of a risk financially, her not working, and yet for that woman there is something in her heart that says, “It’s time, I’m called to do this, God wants me to be a mum.” It’s the same thing, we can apply it to all sorts of different bits of potential that God has planned for our lives, and what God has planned for my life is so different to what God has planned for your life, and what God has planned for the next person is different from yours.

It’s so silly when we try and compare ourselves to one another. It’s not about seeing potential and chasing recognition, for me it’s about seeing the potential that God has laid before me and walking down that path and experiencing the deep satisfaction of living the life that God had planned. Of living out the potential that God has sown into my DNA that He planned even before the beginning of the earth.

And you have this sense of working to the manufacturers specifications, of humming, there’s a holy ease on what I do. This ugly duckling syndrome that we have, of ‘I want to be famous’ or ‘I want to be like that person’ or ‘I want to go and do something that I’m not gifted to do therefore I’m no good’. What a load of rubbish.

Let me ask you a question, have you looked at yourself lately with sober judgment, who you are, who God made you to be? Have you got a really good handle on your gifts and your abilities?

There’s one or two areas where you just excel, you enjoy those, they seem to bless other people, that’s where your potential is, that’s where the seeds are. Don’t compare, when we get comfortable and delighted with who we are, all of a sudden our potential hits us, right between the eyes.

When other people talk about us having potential – well, that’s easy for them to say.  They don’t know the real me. Small. Uncertain. Insignificant. No, they don’t know the real me.

This week on “A Different Perspective” we’re taking a look at reaching our full potential. So many of us don’t for one reason or another. It’s easy to blame our circumstances or our past, or our parents, or our education, but really that’s not it. So often we’re caught up in the day-to day-business of living, just getting by, we don’t have the energy to think big thoughts.

Let me ask you when was the last time you let your imagination out of its cage just to wander, to roam the fertile hills and valleys of possibilities and potential, of things that might be? Why is it that we get so locked into our status quo that we can’t even imagine moving house, or changing jobs, let alone following the real desires of our heart? Whatever happened to thinking big, outrageous, stimulating, scary thoughts?

For almost 20 years I was a consultant, strategic management consulting and a lot of information technology consulting. And over those 20 years I worked in, I guess, around 200 organisations and so, interacted with thousands of people over that time. And often I was engaged as a consultant because there was a need in the organisation.

They were doing some big new technology project, or there was a new system, or something had gone wrong. And whenever there’s something new, it tends to equal change; new ways of working, new business processes, and for many people, that change can be threatening. “New” often exposes rifts and cracks in organisations.

So part of the process of helping the organisation through change, was bringing groups of people together in different settings and different circumstances to do some brainstorming, to begin the process of a team of people working through issues and problems, so that they could come up with good solutions.

Now brainstorming is exactly what the word says, it’s getting ideas out on the table. And the number one rule for brainstorming is that there is no bad idea, there are no wrong ideas, there are no wrong thoughts, let’s just get them out there, let’s evaluate them later. But lets tap the creative potential of this group, just to think big, radical thoughts, put them up on the whiteboard, put them up on butcher’s paper on the wall, and let’s not care who came up with them, what the ideas are, how whacky, or weird, or way-out they seem.

Brainstorming is getting the ideas out on the table. But over and over again I consistently noticed two things: The first is that a lot of people are locked into the here and now, so the ideas are bounded by present circumstances. It’s one of the things I find in designing houses. I renovated a house a few years ago and the reason we had an architect come in, was because I could only see the renovation in terms of the current walls and boundaries, whereas the architect blew our minds away because he could see the potential, he could see beyond what was there in bricks and mortar then and there.

So that’s the first thing, people tend to be locked into the here and now and secondly often I’ve found that they’re inhibited and afraid to share ideas because they might be wrong, someone might think I’m stupid, that might be so way out they might think I’m smoking something I shouldn’t be. Maybe I’ll offend someone. Maybe they’ll ridicule me. You know what? It’s the same in our lives. We’re often afraid to think big thoughts, and then some joker comes along on the radio and drags us out of our comfort zone with a message that goes something like this:

“You have had so much potential locked inside you by God, and amongst our circumstances and fears, and inhibitions, and the status quo, and our own weaknesses, and failings, all of those things can hold us back from realising that potential. We’re afraid to get the new ideas out on the table. Sometimes we’re afraid to get them up on the butcher’s paper, on the wall, or the whiteboard and just think them and look at them. And so we get locked into a grind.”

I was sharing yesterday that the decision to move from a lucrative career as a consultant into a medium ministry that really needed re-invigorating, that involved a lesser salary, that was a huge move. It was a scary move in some senses a few years ago. But it’s a move that came from thinking huge, radical thoughts. And as you may have heard me say before today, these programs are going to air in 60 countries, tens of thousands of people hear these messages and they all came out of some whacky, radical thought that God put in our hearts, my wife and I, to chase after the potential that he had planted in us.

What if we just put aside for the time being, all our circumstances, and fears, and inhibitions, and the status quo, and our own weaknesses and failings, and the feeling that thinking some of these thoughts might be stupid and we might get ridiculed, and just spend some time with God. And said, “God help me to think Your big thoughts for me.” Someone might say, “Hang on Berni, why are you talking about God all of a sudden?” Because I believe that God wants to be like the water that makes the flowers grow.

We planted some little seedlings in our front yard not so long ago, the plants were New Guinea Impatiens, a beautiful small shrub, dark green leaves, with white flowers. And because of water restrictions where we are (there’s a drought) we’re only allowed to have these little drip watering systems twice a week. So I carefully planted each of them next to a drip outlet and ten minutes twice a week, they get watered.

Well a few weeks on, most of them grew and sprouted and multiplied and they’re full of these stunning flowers and they’re healthy but one little small seedling, it’s Ok, it’s alive but it hasn’t grown, and there are no flowers and I had a look and I realised it’s not near one of the little drip outlets. It didn’t get any water; it didn’t reach its potential because it missed out on the water.

Now we on our own can be like that one little plant. We can do this and do that and the thinking of today says that it’s all within you, and we can grow and we can be Ok. But like that one little plant that didn’t get the water, we don’t get to our full potential and the thinking of today, it’s all within you, look within, it’s such a part truth, that it’s a lie, it’s a con job. It’s like saying the plant doesn’t need the water.

But to have a really big thought, to reach our full potential we need water, we need that living fresh fountain of water which is God’s spirit. And when you think about it, those flowers, people walk past our front yards and they look at these little flowers and the number of people that stop and comment on them, those flowers are there for other people to enjoy.

And somehow when we think big, radical, exciting, scary thoughts and we let God’s Spirit water those thoughts, and fed those thoughts, and shed light on those thoughts, and blow His wind and air through those thoughts, those thoughts set those little seeds growing in us. And when they grow and they sprout, and have flowers, and they have fruit, if it’s from God, ultimately other people will enjoy those flowers, other people will enjoy that fruit. That’s God’s plan. And when we’re that little plant with the flowers, it is such a satisfying thing.

It is so fulfilling for me to be walking in the dreams and the potential that God had for me. But yet other people are benefiting from the fruit in my life. That’s a fantastic economy, that’s a fantastic plant that is so God, it is so exciting.

We can be happy on the surface but be like that one little plant that didn’t get any water, or we can be deeply satisfied, growing fruit, growing flowers that bless other people when we think big thoughts in Christ.

When we look at the success in other people’s lives, it’s easy to focus only on the fruit, and miss the sheer hard work and commitment it took for them to get there.  Turns out that realising your potential … takes commitment.

This week on “A Different Perspective”, we’re taking a look at reaching our full potential because there are so many people today, who for one reason or another, just don’t. Maybe it’s reaching our potential as a parent, or in our work, or vocation, but reaching out; living out our full potential has so much to do with our sense of satisfaction and fulfilment in life. Now it’s one thing for us to have a sense of our potential and to think big thoughts, we’ve talked about those over the last couple of days. But it’s another thing entirely to reach that potential, to realise it.

For so many people there’s a gap between dreaming and doing. We look at great tennis players, or musicians, or business leaders, or model parents, and dream of being like them but somehow we conveniently ignore the hard yards involved in reaching that sort of potential. Bottom line, reaching our potential involves hard work.

Bloke by the name of Paul, an Apostle 2000 years ago, he knew that. He wrote this, he said, “Don’t you know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize? Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that won’t last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I don’t run like a man running aimlessly, I don’t fight like a man beating the air”.

Then he goes on to talk about all the things that can distract us. Paul looked at life in this way. He said, “Look, a lot of things are going to happen through life, I’m going to be determined to be focused on what God’s called me to but my full potential the thing that really matters is my relationship with Jesus, it’s an eternal thing.”

And the things he did along the way, they were amazing, but for him they were steps along a journey, which he took very deliberately, he was very focused on. But the journey was the point, it was culminating in eternal life. He led so many people to Jesus. He planted and nurtured so many churches over a dozen or so years, he wrote almost half of the books of the New Testament today. We’re still reading his stuff today, we’re sitting here today 2000 years on, talking about what Paul wrote. The guy had a huge impact.

But here are the two things that really strike me about Paul. The first thing is he never lost sight of the end game. He saw all his potential in those terms. You know how we can get distracted by what’s going on today, what’s going on tomorrow, you read what Paul wrote and he’s always talking about life today in terms of eternal life, in terms of the goal, in terms of being with Jesus for eternity.

The second thing is he knew that reaching his potential involved hard work and perseverance through trials. Paul, he sparked riots, he was beaten, they tried to murder him, he was shipwrecked, he was bitten by snakes, he was hounded by the religious establishment, he was in prisoned, chained, killed for his faith. And all the way, all the way he had his eye on the end game, and the end game for Paul was Jesus.

We can dream dreams, we can think big thoughts and then get all starry eyed and imagine somehow, like it won’t be hard work, like becoming a parent. You know, when you make a decision as husband and wife to have a child and you think, “Ah, isn’t it going to be wonderful and yeah, yeah, it’s going to be hard work but it’s going to be wonderful.” And then you go through the process, a life long process of bringing up children. Even when they’re adults, we’re still involved in their lives and it’s a wonderful experience but it’s hard work.

As Paul said, Paul used the example of the athlete, you know athlete wants to win the race at the games but an athlete has to go into strict training. It requires focus, and effort, and dedication, and perseverance, and breaking through the pain barrier that athletes have to break through. And whatever the calling is that God has placed on our life, whatever our potential is that he wants us to live out, we can bet our bottom dollar that as wonderful as that journey will be, as fulfilling as that journey will be, it’ll be hard work too. It’ll require dedication, and the thing that for Paul, helped him do that was his perspective, his eternal perspective – always with his eye on the end game.

In twenty years of consulting in lots of organisations I’ve seen the number of people who keep their eye on the end game during the difficult times well, there aren’t many of them, actually quite a small percentage of people. And those people in organisational terms are worth their weight in gold because they’re the ones that keep an organisation focused and moving forward to where it should be going. We need to do the same as people. That’s what I find so encouraging about Paul is when he went through those riots, and the beatings, and the shipwrecks, he was always focused on the glory of God in Jesus Christ.

So realising that we have some potential, thinking big thoughts, having great ideas, they’re important but they’re only the first step. The thing that really, really helps us to realise our potential, the thing that gets us through the difficult times is a commitment that’s so deeply rooted in the end game, in that relationship with Jesus, in seeing his glory go out. That’s what Paul was about. A commitment rooted in a clear vision of the eternal picture because without that, the effort, the work, it becomes a grind. People say, “Surely, Berni you don’t experience that?” Well absolutely!

When you’re producing radio programs day after day, after day, after day, after day, if it’s not in an eternal context, if the commitment that is in my heart isn’t about the glory of Jesus, you know what happens, it becomes a grind, it becomes dry, it becomes lifeless. But from an eternal perspective, every time I do this, it is so exciting; it is such a blessing because in my heart I know it’s about Jesus, it’s about touching lives with his love.

And with all the radio programs, and stations, and stuff, they’re the external measures of success. They’re the things that people look at and go, “Oh wow, isn’t that wonderful they’re doing that.” But that’s not success, that’s not where it’s at. Where it’s at for me, is seeing that one life touched with the love of Jesus Christ. That’s what our organisation’s potential is all about. That’s what the potential that God is laying before me is all about.

People see success in human ways, in numbers and stuff and that’s wonderful but that’s not where it is. But what they don’t see is the commitment, and the effort, and the hard work, and the perseverance of our small team here. And of the teams and the individuals that get involved in living out the potential that God has for them. If you ask any one of our team, Gary, our Assistant Director, or Jacqui who answers the phone and does our mail, or Ann who manages parts of our website, you ask them, they’ll tell you something interesting, for each one of them it’s more than a job.

It’s not just coming into work everyday and cranking the handle over, it’s doing something with eternal significance which gives us as a team the perseverance to live a life for God’s glory and to keep doing day after day, after day the things that to some other people might feel mundane.

Your potential, realising that, will take effort, and commitment, and hard work, through the hard times, through the disappointments, through the times when we’re tired.

And if the truth be known, you know, you wouldn’t want it any other way, would you? If it were all easy, if it were all a piece of cake, it just wouldn’t be the same rich, significance, of living out the potential that God has for our lives, for each one of us.

Most of us have heard of Rembrandt’s famous painting “The Night Watch” – little did many realise that under the years of grime that had built up on its surface, that masterpiece held a deep secret.

Well here we are, it’s Friday and we are heading towards the end of another week. A week where we have been talking about realising our potential – being all that God has created us to be. These days, the world tells us that all our potential is inside us. Look there, look inside and you will find it. Well I do believe that God has planted seeds of potential in our DNA, seeds that He would love to water and breathe life into.

As we saw on Monday, we have been created in His image, an awesome thought; hand crafted by Him to enjoy Him and to be like Him but in each case there is something that gets in the road of that beautiful plan. In each and every life, each and every one of us somehow falls short of the glory that God intends for us.

These days we are programmed to reach for our potential, to reach for the stars. Don’t worry that we’re not perfect, if it feels good do it, don’t worry about this or that or old-fashioned ideas – just do it! Yet I can’t get away from the fact that God is perfect, God is so good, so full of love, so perfect. He has this perfect plan for our lives and it’s a plan that doesn’t involve the “s” word – sin.

I used to hear Christians talk about sin and I would think “Ah, get out of here.” Stop being so judgemental, get real who needs that stuff? Who needs a guilt trip? Get on and live life, you know, whatever it is, whatever you want to do – do it as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, just do it.” But the reality is, these failures, these weaknesses, this thing that Christians call sin, that’s what holds us back from reaching our full potential.

Maybe you really want a job promotion badly, to get to the top, so you tread on people, you gossip, you stab them in the back. We see that, don’t we? It happens in the workplace all the time and maybe that person gets to the top but when they do it’s a hollow victory because there are no relationships left, there is no support from those people that this person has risen above. People are murmuring they’re waiting for this person, this backstabber who has trodden all over them; they’re waiting for them to get their just deserts. Inevitably, that rubbish, that sin, robs us of the fruits of our potential.

You see it so many times, a rock star who makes it to the top but drugs get to them. People who are wealthy and yet they just throw their money around and gamble it away, even just normal people, like you and me, who have so much potential, so many things that we could do with our lives. Come on, how often do our weaknesses and our failures rob us of the fruits of that potential and we get so used to it, this sin, if I can use that word, we stop noticing it.

We don’t see it anymore, it just becomes part of everyday life and when someone comes and points it out to us, we get all defensive, we get all angry, we say, “You’re being judgmental”. I don’t believe that’s what God is doing when he talks about sin. What he is doing is saying, “I have a good and perfect plan for your life and that thing that I call sin in your life, is robbing you of your potential.”

Most of us know of that really famous painting by Rembrandt called The Night Watch. It’s a stunning painting. He painted it in 1642. It’s a picture of a group of city guard men waiting to be called into line and the painting is called Night Watch because when they first found the painting it was really dark. It was an old painting and you know old paintings get soiled and they get slightly damaged no matter how well they are looked after. 1642 was just a few years ago so it needed restoration and when they restored it, this is what they discovered.

When they lifted the grime and the grease and the deteriorated layer off, painstakingly, lovingly restoring the painting, they discovered, actually, it was a day scene; it’s not a night scene at all. Now, they have never changed it to day watch but yet, that’s what it should be called, we still call it The Night Watch but it’s actually not a night scene. The grime, the deterioration over the years, little by little, no one noticed it building up, it darkened the scene until even the experts thought it was a night scene.

But when they restored it we could all see it the way Rembrandt always intended us to see it, the way he painted it, the way he skilfully, beautifully created this stunning painting. Once it was restored we could see its original image and that is was God is talking about. It’s just like us.

If you were with us earlier in the week, on Monday we talked about the fact that God has created us in His image – a beautiful and stunning picture, so full of life and colour and energy and creativity and potential. But little by little, compromises creep in, we turn our backs on God and all of a sudden it’s not as bright and vibrant and alive as God means it to be. So God came up with this amazing image restoration plan, Jesus His Son, who died on the cross for us. A simple plan, a profound plan to pay the price for that sin to set us free. And that’s why the apostle Paul can write this, he says, “If anyone believes in Christ, that person is a new creation, all the old muck has passed away, everything is new.”

It’s like restoring this original painting, a decisive restoration act in God’s forgiveness through Jesus but then, God has this another amazing plan, it’s a life long process. It’s like every little bit of the painting being lovingly restored by its original creator. A painstaking task, it’s amazing how many parts of our lives and attitudes and behaviours need restoring and God leads us through those, lovingly, over time, through a process, in a time where we can handle it.

It is such a beautiful plan and it starts, for me, with the realisation that I, like Rembrandt’s painting – The Night Watch, I was robbed of the fullness, of the beauty of the image of God, that he meant me to be like. And when I accepted Jesus, when I accepted him and said, “I believe that I fall short of the glory of God, I believe that Jesus died for me”, that was the beginning of the process of gentle, painstaking, hand restoration by God himself.

And my prayer is that today, I look more like Jesus than I did ten years ago when I first met him. And in ten years time I will look much more like Jesus than I do now because it’s a journey and a process that God has ordained for every person. If only we would admit the same thing that the restorers found in the Rembrandt painting, that sin has robbed us of the fullness and the vibrancy of the image of God in us.

The biggest thing for me, in reaching my potential is to let Him do that; to let Him take the initiative; to engage and co-operate with Him to open my heart and my life to His delicate loving touch as He gently restores me back into His image from glory to glory, from one step to the next step, rich and vibrant and vivid, not like a black and white TV but like a colour TV.

And when that happens, His light streams in and His fresh air streams in and His living waters streams in. And those seeds of potential that He has planted in our DNA. Well, they can’t help it. They just sprout and they grow and they grow, into the fullness that God has planned. Into a plant that has flowers and fruit that other people can enjoy. It’s the natural way that God has with us, that’s His plan. That’s how God wants us to reach, our full potential.