A Potent Call

Ever feel like you are spread too thin? You wonder if anything you do makes any difference because everything you do is done in such a rush to get to the next thing? You have no time to focus on doing any one thing very well because you are too exhausted trying to do it all. If you are like me I tend to easily fall into this pattern of living. No matter how much I try to reign it in I hear myself saying... "Oh sure I can do that," while in the back of my mind I'm thinking... "WHAT DID I JUST SAY?" I struggle to say that oh so simple word... "NO!"

I have heard many wise people speak a word about SIMPLICITY. Don't you just love the sound of that word? I long for the simple, unrushed, peaceful and refreshing benefits that would come from a life lived in simplicity. Sometimes I do walk in simple places but more often I stumble back into the complex chaotic life of frenzy. The temptation to add more and more to my life traps me every time. Our culture screams at us that a busy life is an important life. Even the church can subtly lure us into thinking a busy life is a godly life. Hardly true...

Someone once said... " YOU WILL MAKE THE GREATEST IMPACT IN YOUR LIFE BY BEING POTENT IN YOUR CALLING" Ohhh, I like that! Be Potent! The dictionary defines potent as having authority or influence, powerful, rich in a characteristic constituent. Being potent involves being single minded and intentional about one or two things not the five or six I often find myself trying to juggle. But how does one decide what those one or two things should be?

Someone else once said... "What is it that only YOU... Donna Wagner can do?" As I thought about it, only I can be wife to Rick... only I can be mother to my four children... only I can truly know what's inside that makes me tick. There is a passion God places deep in the fiber of our beings. Things we love to do that are energizing. We may have even dreamed of living out these passions as a child. Think for a while... as a child what did you pretend to be? I believe what we were naturally drawn to as children are clues to lead us into what we are designed as adults to pursue. Could it be God created us with a unique design to carry out a specific calling that he especially equipped us to do? I think so.

It's up to us however to search our hearts to find out what that deep seeded passion and calling is and then to set up our strong boundaries and focus in on being potent in that calling. We are potent when we say no to anything that does not line up with helping us successfully accomplish our unique calling. We say no to anything that would distract or steal away time that would have been spent investing in the call.

As I contnue to plug away at becoming more potent in my one or two areas I remind myself there is GRACE. Aren't you glad God sees us all as works in progress? We are on a journey and the journey takes us down a winding path of learning and becoming... sometimes failing, always being forgiven and as a result becoming stronger more beautiful and useful to Him. Do you know your process is sacred to God? He uses everything that happens to us for something good. I love that! He loves to see what we will learn along the way and he delights in our process. So get rid of the image of God who is impatiently wondering if we will ever arrive. We already have arrived through faith in His Son's work on our behalf... AMAZING!

I tried to stay potent and focused in this post by sticking to one topic... I kinda went off, but hopefully you get the drift... Give some grace... I'm still in process, right?

~Donna~