Chapter 11: Who Can Help You Reach your Potential?

            In business, employers measure employees’ potential for failure or success in hiring, promoting, and firing. In sports, coaches recruit and train players to achieve their potential and win. In education, teachers help students achieve potential to bring honor to their schools.

            If a fellow employee gets the promotion you wanted, if another player gets the starting position you tried out for, if another student gets the scholarship you hoped to receive, if someone has more money, talents, looks, and opportunities than you do, the human tendency is to feel you have less. The world can make you believe your potential is reduced by others’ successes—not only do you have less but you are less.

            In a revelation given to Moses, Moses saw God’s glorious creations and realized how insignificant he was in comparison. Moses said: “Now for this cause I know that man is nothing.” Then the Lord taught him about human potential: “And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine. And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words. For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:36-39).

            How the world measures potential and how Heavenly Father measures individual worth are exactly opposite. With Heavenly Father there will never be a shortage of His love or a limit to the inspiration or opportunities He will provide. There is room in the Celestial Kingdom for everyone who wants to be there. Why is this so? Because it is His work and glory to help your reach your potential.

            The lyrics to “I Am a Child of God” attest to every person’s divine potential. Each child of God has potential to become like his or her Heavenly Parents.

            The world can make you feel your potential is limited. The gospel teaches you that your potential is limitless.

            Joseph Smith said: “All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 354). All is everyone.

            Your talents and abilities are gifts from God. He expects you to use them for the same purpose He creates worlds without number—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His children. To help Him do that is your privilege and opportunity.

            Whatever has kept you from pursuing your potential—lack of focus, weakness in determination, fear of failure, or insufficient faith in yourself or in Heavenly Father’s ability to help you—can be changed.

            If you turn your life over to God, He will give you power to do more and do it better. He will help you do as Jesus instructed: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew5:15-16).  

            These blessings will come when you watch for teachers God will put in your path to show you either what not to do or what to do. These tutors arrive in ordinary as well as extraordinary ways.

            Richard and I were staying on the Oregon coast in a condo with a balcony. One afternoon we saw two large California Gulls land on the balcony. Evidently, these gulls need space to flap their wings several times before they can take off in flight. When they noticed there was the needed space to get off the balcony, the gulls panicked, flapping their wings wildly, running into each other, crashing into the Plexiglas around the edge of the balcony, squawking loudly, and vomiting. Feathers flew everywhere.

            We watched helplessly not knowing what to do. Suddenly a crow landed on the railing of the balcony. The crow was about one-third the size of the gulls. We wondered how the gulls would react to the crow and what the crow was doing. They watched the crow hop down on a chair, hop up on the table, hop up on the railing, and fly away. In a moment the crow was back and repeated the same cycle. “The crow is teaching the seagulls!” Richard exclaimed. Within seconds of being shown the way, the seagulls followed the crow’s example and flew away.

            The world tells you to feel threatened by those who can do things more or better than you can, but if you think of these people as crows sent to help you understand, learn, grow, even fly, your potential will further unfold for good. And that is the purpose of life.

            Erma Bombeck said it this way: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.”

            The very, very best part of working to achieve your potential is that unlike the worldly symbols of success—money, possessions, and fame, you take your talents, knowledge, and intelligence with you when you die. The scripture teaches: “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come” (D&C 130:18-19).

            There is no lid on your potential. Continued growth will come to you as you turn your life over to God and diligently apply the lessons taught. You can teach like the crow or be a quick learner like the gulls. 

The Oregon coast at Depoe Bay

The seagulls on the balcony

The crow coming to help.    

(c) Marilynne Todd Linford, 2018