Potential: Your Raw Material For Greatness

Potential: Your Raw Material For Greatness 

"God’s gift to you is your potential, what you do with it is your gift to God. He’s concerned not only about what you’re but about what you can become.’’-John Maxwell

According to the Collins English dictionary, the word potential means the following:

· Possible but not yet actual

· Capable of being or becoming

· Latent but unrealized ability or capacity

One of the greatest lessons I have learned from nature is that the future, beauty, and the greatness of anything resides within it, and that everything has naturally been endowed with the capacity to fulfill the purpose for which it was created. For example, the future of a maize plant lies in its seed, the future of a human being lies in the union of the egg and spermatozoa, the future of gold and diamond lies in their ores and so on. These initial phases are called potentials.

Anytime I think of the capacity that God has put into the being of an average man, I always get amazed. Human being is the most power creature on earth. Man is wired with the capacity to do what is practically impossible to a logical mind. The word of Ralph Waldo Emerson is true for all human being, he said, ‘’Nobody and not even you can tell exactly what you can do until you do it.’’

Let us a take a look at some of the unbelievable achievements of the creative genius of man since the dawn of civilization:

Man has advanced from a fruit gatherer and hunter to the 21st century farmer that don’t only grows his own crops, but make use of sophisticated tools and implements such as plough, bulldozer, combine harvester in carrying out his farming activity. Unlike the primitive farmers, he can now take advantage of scientific discoveries and innovations in improving his crops, control pest, and create new varieties of crop or crop species using genetic principles. He can also control weeds and the activities of pest, parasites and rodents using herbicides and pesticides.

In the area of technology, man has done so many things a logical mind would probably think are impossible. Man has invented motor vehicles, airplanes, rockets, atomic bomb, ship, the internet, and computers and so on.


In the area of art and culture, man has analyzed life and death, good and evil, and developed human psychology. Man has invented government, politics, communication, commerce, religion and so on. The works of great thinkers like Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Williams Shakespeare, and Napoleon hill are evidence of this fact.

In the field of medicine, man has studied the entire human anatomy and physiology, and those of other living organisms, he has discovered how various human ailments are caused and has invented cure for many diseases that have been dreadful and inimical to the life of man here on earth.

Man invented science as a tool for analyzing and solving his major problems. Man has made a lot of breakthroughs in science which has contributed immensely, or constitutes the basis of the current level of technology worldwide. Such breakthroughs include, the discovery of the theory of gravity and calculus by Isaac Newton, theory of relativity and quantum mechanics by Einstein to mention but a few.

Nobody would have been able to predict that the human race would come this far in advancement considering the physical condition and lifestyle of the early man. The truth is that man’s potential to attain his current level of advancement was already with the early man, but remain latent until it was gradually utilized throughout the past centuries, to place man where he is today, and this is but the beginning of the advancement .The most powerful tool, and as well as the greatest weakness of man is his imagination. Anything that is conceivable can be translated into reality .That is what history has taught us. On the other hand if we unconsciously incapacitate our creative ability by believing that certain things are impossible, they will remain impossible. Jesus once said, ‘’to him that believes all things are possible.’’ This is not far from the truth.

Every human being is loaded with unlimited potential, but it’s so unfortunate that only very few people have integrated this belief into their paradigm. Greatness is locked up on the inside of every man, and it will never manifest until it is released. Nobody was born empty, we are all designed to do the unbelievable and attain incredible heights in life.

A lot of people are struggling, unhappy and have no sense of fulfillment in their chosen career today because they are into what they are not naturally design for. It is not every seed that can grow into a mango tree, so also is the seed of greatness in you. By your potentials, you are designed to excel in certain industry, such that if you can discover it and go into it, the sky will not be your limit. Just try to think about this. How easy will it be trying to fix a square peg into a round hole? Obviously doing so would be a very difficult task. As it is difficult to fix a square peg into a round hole, so also it would be difficult to excel in a career which one does not have the latent capacity that can cope with its demands.

You are created to perform a role in life that no one can live out except you, I personally believe that this role is God’s gift to lift and make you great in life. Charles Gordon, the author of when the going gets tough, the tough get creative once said, ‘’I reckon that if He took the trouble to give each of us unique fingerprints and individualized DNA, surely he has a unique plan and purpose for each of our lives, a plan that no one can live out.’’ The worst thing that can ever happen to a man in life is to live and die without fulfilling the purpose for which he was created. The reality is that more than 80% of people who have passed through this planet earth are victims. They died with the bag of treasure in them; no wonder they say that the grave is the richest place on earth.

Having known that you are here on earth for a purpose, and that your potentials are the raw materials or tools that you need to fulfill that purpose and become a successful individual, then it is left for you to decide to discover your own potential, and maximize it to become one of the icons of change in your generation or ignore it, and keep struggling in the rat race for the rest of your life, the choice is in your hand.