While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” – Genesis 8:22

Do you have a dream? An idea? A yearning to do something that just won’t go away that you know God has placed in your heart? When God gives us a dream, He is calling forth what He placed inside of us before we were even born. We’re full of potential for His plans and purpose for our lives. Still, it’s up to us to water the seed of that potential, to tend to the soil of our hearts, to develop all that God has placed inside of us.

Think of it this way: God gave trees the ability to reproduce themselves through their seed. If you’ve ever taken a pine cone apart, you’ll see little seeds, each with a “wing” attached to it. That’s so the wind can catch the seed and take it where it can fall to the ground and begin to take root. In the right soil, in the right environment, that seed will sprout and grow into a new, fully grown tree. The fully grown tree was always in the seed, but no one could see it until it was put in the right soil and then nurtured by the rain and the sun.

In a similar fashion, the seeds in our hearts—the dreams and ideas and plans and purposes of God—grow as we water them with faith. The seeds grow as we tend to the soil of our hearts, feeding them the Word of God and applying it in our lives, thus making our hearts good ground.

God’s plans and purposes for our lives grow as we keep walking with Him, building endurance, and staying with those plans to completion. This is how we give birth to our dreams, to the ideas God gives us. The potential is always there, but it’s in seed form until we do what is necessary to make it grow.

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us – Ephesians 3:20

God wants us to grow to where we are to go. The challenge is that it’s countercultural. It’s so much easier to reach for what’s instant, for what we can snap and upload, for what we can order and have delivered the same day, but that’s not how God’s ways work. They aren’t instant. God works over time. With a seed that needs to be nurtured.

Are you aware of God’s plans for your life? Can you feel any untapped potential lying dormant inside you? Potential is the difference between what is actual and what is possible. It is the unexposed ability, the reserved strength, the unrealized success, the dormant gifts, and the hidden talents waiting to be developed. It is the person you are still to become. It is where you can go but have not yet been. It is all you can do but have not yet done. It is where you can reach but have not yet aimed.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. – Proverbs 3:5-6

You don’t have to know all the plans and purposes God has for you, since most of them unfold over time, but do you know one of them? Start nurturing that seed today and watch it begin to grow. It’s as sure as seedtime and harvest.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, please help me nurture the seeds of potential You have placed inside of me. I want to grow where You want me to go. In Jesus’ name, amen.