When God created you, He deposited within you many gifts and talents. Those gifts could be summarized in one word: potential. God has given you the potential to do great things, to serve Him fully, and to change the world for His glory.
God did not give us fully developed gifts. Instead, He deposited seeds within us, and it is our job to care for those seeds, so they grow and mature, reaching their full potential. Many people get discouraged along the way. Their gifts do not develop as quickly as they would like. They do not reach their goals as soon as they had expected to. Often people end up settling for less, instead of continuing to push forward and reaching their full potential.
I don’t want that to happen to you! Today, I want to encourage you to keep pressing on. I want to share with you three keys to reaching your full potential.
1. SEEK JESUS FIRST
Now, perhaps you have grown up in church, and you have heard this 1000 times. It can be tempting to not really hear it. To just go, “Yeah, yeah, I know. Seek Jesus first.” And then move on with our lives as if we had never been told the key to success.
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Growing up, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about my identity. I didn’t sit at home and ponder why I was the way I was. I didn’t spend much time contemplating my decisions or trying to be a certain way. I was just me. For the most part, I really liked who I was.
But as an adult, I began to process my identity more and more. Why did I act a certain way? Why did people say hurtful things about me? Why did that situation bother me so much? Why was I the way I was? What was my identity?
For as long as I can remember, I have been taught, as a Christian, my identity is in Christ. I am a daughter of the King. If I put my identity in anything else, it won’t last. But what does that really mean? How do I know if my identity is really in Christ?
Identity is an interesting concept. It is this crazy mix of what others believe about us and what we believe about ourselves. I might think I’m organized and strong-willed, but someone else might look at those same qualities and think I am controlling and bossy. Maybe you think you are peaceful and a good delegator, but someone else might look at those same qualities and think you don’t care or you are lazy. So what’s the truth?
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Almost every year since we moved to Texas in 2011, the North Dakota State University Bison football team has made it to the NCAA Division 1 championship game. This game is held at the Toyota Stadium in Frisco, TX. The great thing about this is that every time the Bison make it to the game, my relatives come down to Texas to watch. It’s like a special gift from God every time family comes to visit.
Several years ago, when my family was here for the football game, we went to their hotel to spend some time together. While we were talking, one of my aunts mentioned she flossed her teeth every day. I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was, but to be honest, I thought flossing was something dentists told you to do, but no one ever really did.
That conversation lit a spark in my mind. I was going to start flossing. I was going to make it a habit. The next time I went to the dentist, I wasn’t going to have to lie! Ha! All it took was for someone I respected to share with me a habit they had, and I have flossed my teeth every day since.
I wish every habit was that easy to form.
The hard part about forming a habit isn’t the actual habit; it is changing your mindset. You see before I started flossing, I didn’t really believe it was that important. I didn’t see it was necessary. I don’t think I even thought it was possible to floss every day. But my aunt changed my mindset.
What habit are you wanting to start? Do you want to eat healthy? Read your Bible every day? Start exercising? Read a book? Learn a new skill?
I want to share with you Five Keys to Developing Healthy Habits:
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My heart was racing. I couldn’t catch my breath. What was happening? Was I having a heart attack? I’m in my thirties, and I’m a runner — certainly my heart is fine. But why can’t I breathe?
I took my phone into the closet and frantically searched Google for the signs of a heart attack. What I found made me feel better and worse all at the same time.
Thankfully, I was not having a heart attack! Unfortunately, I was having a panic attack. I had never experienced this before. I laid on the floor and focused on breathing in deep, trying to get this horrible feeling to pass.
Life was so out of control. We had just made our second big move in three years. Starting over again. New friends. New jobs. New places. I was just beginning to feel settled in our last town, and now I needed to start all over.
It might not have been so bad if we had been able to just move and not look back, but our house wasn’t selling. Every week we had to make the hour and a half drive each way to mow the lawn and check on the house. It’s hard to commit to a new city when you have to spend your free time driving back to the old one.
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In a recent episode of America’s Got Talent, Paul Potts, the first winner of Britain’s Got Talent, talked about the impact winning had on his life. He said, “I walked onto that stage a nobody and left it as somebody.” The crowd erupted in applause, and the judges nodded in agreement — but my heart broke.
I wanted to reach through the screen and tell Mr. Potts he was a somebody long before he walked on the stage of Britain’s Got Talent. Perhaps, he was not well known. Maybe he wasn’t asked to sing for the queen or to perform all over the world. Likely, only a handful of people knew he could sing and appreciated the gift he had been given. But, he was not a nobody.
From the moment God formed Paul Potts in his mother’s womb, he was a somebody. He mattered. He had value. He didn’t need the accolades of thousands of people to be somebody. He didn’t need people to cheer for him. He didn’t need to sell millions of albums. He didn’t need people to know his name. He was already known, already cared for, already beloved.
“For we know, brothers and sisters loved by God, that he has chosen you.” 1 Thessalonians 1:4 (NIV)
Someday the voice of Paul Potts will be a distant memory. The next person will step onto the stage, and Paul will be forgotten by the crowds that cheer for him today. If his worth is truly found in the applause of others, he will be left as he was before — a nobody.
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