Monday, August 24, 2009

KNOCK KNOCK POTENTIAL

One of the hardest things to do is keep showing up. It is hard when you feel like you are not getting anything out of it. It is hard when you feel like nobody notices you are there. It is hard when you feel unappreciated when all you want is a chance to show what you're made of.

There is a story of an unnamed man who was an armor bearer to the son of one of the ancient Kings of Israel. Jonathan was the name of the King's son. And Jonathan was not opposed to picking fights and making stuff happen. In wore ridden times, King Saul, who was ordered by God to attack their arch rivals, the Philistines, chose not to take action. On the other hand, Jonathan, who was what we would call today a "go getter," came up with this what I would have probably considered, really stupid idea:

"Now it happend one day that Jonathan the son of Saul said to the young man who bore his armor, "Come, let us go over to the Philistines camp that is on the other side. But he did not tell his father."

Then Jonathan said to the young man who bore his armor, 'Come let us go over there to the camp of these Philistines; it may be that the Lord will work for us. For nothing restrains the Lord from saving by many or by few.'

So his armor bearer said to him, 'Do all that is in your heart. Go then; here I am with you, according to your heart.'

'Very well, let us cross over to these man, and we will show ourselves to them.'

So both of them showed themselves to the camp of the Philistines. And the Philistines said, 'Look the Hebrews are coming out of the holes where they have hidden.' Then the men of the camp called to Jonathan and his armor bearer, and said, 'Come up to us, and we will show you something.'"

So here you have it, Jonathan and his armor bearer called down to get in a fight with about 20 Philistine warriors. Not good odds, especially since the armor bearer is not even a warrior!

However, the story finishes with the Philistine's being delivered into the hands of the Isrealites as God had promised King Saul. Jonathan and his armor bearer (and a lot of divine intervention) wiped out about 20 Philistines in the camp.

The point of this story is about the will to keep showing up as the armor bearer did. He was a last guy on the totem pole, not a warrior, not an officer, just the guy who carried Jonathan's shield and sword. Kind of like a gold caddy for a soldier. The unnammed nobody, who just kept showing up to follow and serve his leader, became a warrior that day.

So many of us never reach our "potential" because we are unwilling to keep knocking on the door and showing up. We may knock for a while, but when it starts getting hard, boring, something else comes up, when we start feeling sorry for ourselves, and we start thinking we deserve something, we stop.

In the end, those who are not reaching their potential is because of their lack of investment. Investing is doing what you may not want to do now, knowing that this unrewarded effort now will provide exponential rewards sometime in the future.

This week keep knocking, keep showing up, keep serving, keep investing...

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