What is your Potential?

Hammer Time: a tool with potential This is a hammer. It is a tool. It is just an object and yet it is full of potential....

It has the potential to destroy and smash and tear down and break and hurt.... For bad?

It has the potential to not realise its potential and sit unused in the shed while odd jobs stay undone! For Nothing?

And it has the potential to build and create and bring together. For Good?

It depends on who is holding it Do they have good intentions?; Do they have the knowledge and the skills?; Do they have the get up and go? It depends on who is holding it

And what their intentions are It depends on how it is used and who uses it whether it’s potential for good stuff or its potential for bad stuff is realised or whether it remains unused.

YOU are so much more than a hammer! You are living being with skills and talents and thoughts and feelings and ideas. You are not completely at the will of others – you can make decisions yourself about whether you use all that potential for the good stuff, for the bad stuff or for nothing at all. YOU are so much more than a hammer!

Ask yourself the questions... Do I have good intentions? Do I have the knowledge and the skills and am I willing to learn? Do I have the get up and go to make a difference? Ask yourself the questions...

What Mark do you want to Leave? ‘You will know them by their fruits’ Matthew 7:16-20 What mark do I want to leave on the world this year? The Bible says that people will know you by your fruits (Matt 7:16-20) If you were a tree people would know what kind when you started producing apples or figs. As a person examples of fruits are kindness...or selfishness, and whether you build up, or tear down or produce nothing at all (show hammer as a reminder) What Mark do you want to Leave?

Teachers. Colleagues. Our background. Our peers. Tv Teachers? Colleagues? Our background? Our peers? Tv? marketing and consumerism that tells us what we ‘need’ to be happy? Worry, negativity & insecurity? Another way to ask that is What/who shapes and moulds us? Who will influence you?

‘I am the Potter, you are the clay’ ‘I am the Potter, you are the clay’. Jeremiah 18v5+6 Yes, we have our own thoughts and ideas and desires, but we also belong to a God who knows us and wants what is best for us. He can walk with us, guide and even shape us so that we can reach our potential. To truly unlock our potential, we begin to ask ourselves the questions with God in mind:

Asking the questions a new way Do i have good intentions? becomes Do I have God Intentions? Do I have the skills and talents and willingness to learn? Becomes’God has given me gifts and talents. Will i listen and learn so I can use them for his Plan? Do I have the get up and go? Becomes ‘Am I willing to include God in my everyday thoughts and actions? What mark do i want to leave? Becomes What purpose does God have for me? What are His intentions for my life? Who influences me? Becomes ‘how can I be shaped and guided by God’s hand? Asking the questions a new way

In this picture, it’s hard to tell where the Potter’s hands end and where the pottery being shaped begins. God is love. We reach our potential when we are indistinguishable from His love and his Hands.

Simply focusing on the potential and the power of our words – they have the potential to hurt and to damage but with God’s love and guidance they have the potential to build up, encourage, inspire and to mend. We have the potential to bring healing in brokenness, if only we are willing to show love and be guided by love. (picture is Japanese art Kintsugi is the art of mending broken pottery using gold. The broken bits make the piece far more beautiful and far more valuable and the gold makes the whole piece strongest at the places where it was once broken. Power of Words

Hammer Time! You have a choice? What will you choose? A hammer cannot choose if it tears down, builds up or does nothing. You have a choice! What do you choose? Hammer Time! You have a choice? What will you choose?

Let us pray: Lord, you have made us and we are wonderfully made. We are brimming with potential. May we be shaped by you. May we walk with you and be guided by you. may you take our good intentions, our thoughts, our talents and our skills and fulfil our potential to create, to build, to bring together and to love. In this new school year, may you shine your face upon us, give us your peace, centre us in your will and send us out in Your Love. Amen