The Saturday Stoke #41
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Potential.
Potential surrounds us.
The day giving way to night, the night filling with sounds and shadows. Every movement of time carries the potential for something else whether it’s sunrise or sunset.
Clouds form, winds gather, and there is potential for a storm.
Our very existence as human beings is defined by this movement of act and potential.
If you think about it this means that the things we see each day, the people we meet, all possess some kind of charge that moves them into time itself. And this makes life feel dynamic, rather than static.
Join with this movement the emotions of human beings, and we are constantly moving in and out of happiness and sadness, love and despair, but always moving.
Think about the movement of light; how it ignites the skies with a kind of luminous dancing.
Think about how when we whisper the word “beautiful” upon the moment, we are witnessing and describing beauty’s movement and we are observing the potential of the day moving from the night.
Potential is movement. And movement defines life.
“But Tim,” you say, “why this goblet-goop philosophical mumbo-jumbo? After all, it is a Saturday and I just want to stir my tea and relax. Can it be that perhaps you’re a bit too excited for nothing really?”
“Ah yes,” I reply, “every now and again, I do wake up and sip my tea while watching the wind move through the trees, and the hummingbirds zoom through the boughs of the beech and oak, and the raindrops puddle up in my driveway, and you are quite right that I do get excited. But it is not for nothing. Because of the potential I see in the gathering clouds and the hummingbirds, I see in you and me. And that my friend, brings me great peace.”
You see, sometimes we need to encourage ourselves because we won’t always have someone in our corner, cheering us on. Indeed, it’s recorded in the book of 1 Samuel that King David encouraged himself in the Lord.
David’s men were upset because they’d lost their families, and they thought about stoning David. No one was there for David in his distress. His own men reviled him. And yet, he looked to God for encouragement.
And this is where the potential in everything comes into play. Days come and go, and despair and joy follow. We find moments of quiet joy but we also encounter times of quiet despair, and it can feel alone. But that’s when I remember to lift my eyes and look to the heavens.
And what do they show me? Potential. The movement of beauty. The steadfastness of a God alive and working in every aspect of my life.
The oaks don’t just sway and the rain doesn’t just fall. It carries a kind of heartbeat. A cadence from heaven. The very mind of the Father.
And when I for a moment, sipping my tea, reflect on this truth. I think of the God who gives me my own breath—in him, I live and breathe and have my being. I am his potential. And that potential is more than enough to carry on. Indeed, it is what pushes me from the grey times to the movement times of morning glory, and lightning bug nights.
I am his potential. I am his work of art. And I am moving in him—moving from one glory to the next.
Take heart! You and I? We carry the potential of heaven. So let’s get moving.
Stay stoked my friends.
