Beautifully engraved and placed into your hand is a key. This key will unlock your potential for greatness. What are you going to do with it?

The key in your hand is love. Love will unlock the treasure chest within you. Without love, the Bible says your gifts are useless! Your talents were not placed inside you simply for your enjoyment or for the entertainment of others, but to carry the message of God’s Love in the world. You were made to love Him and to worship Him with your life.

Do you understand that God has a plan for your life and that plan is good (Jeremiah 29:11)? Have you embraced the fact that you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14)? That means you are beautiful, exquisite, unique, fabulous!

Begin to see yourself the way God sees you and thank Him for what He has blessed you with. Determine to serve Him with your life and your talents. Give back to Him what He has given to you. Practice your gifts. If you are a writer, write. If you are a singer, sing, if you are an artist, create!

Even if you start out doing it for an audience of One, that is the greatest audience you will ever have. Express your love for Him with your gifts. Worship Him with your talents, serve His people with special skills that He has given you.

Love is the key to unlocking your potential today. Use it!

1 Corinthians 13:1-7 (The Message)

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. ²If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. ^3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

It’s funny how we doubt God’s decision-making skills when He appoints people to certain positions. We don’t see what He sees, even in ourselves. For years I felt led to write but I said to myself, “no one wants to read what I will write”. Where did I get that conclusion? If God gave me the words, wouldn’t He make sure the people read it?

When God called Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt, He told Moses he would have to go before Pharoah to make the case. Moses had fear of public speaking and told God he couldn’t do it. I imagine God’s eyes getting big as He observed the lack of trust Moses had in Him. He asked Moses (paraphrased):

“Who gave you a mouth? Who can make you deaf or mute? Who can give you eyesight or make you blind? If I tell you to talk, Talk! I will give you the words.”

But Moses still said he couldn’t do it and pretty much begged God to send someone else. Now God was angry! I imagine His jaw-dropping and His head shaking in disbelief at Moses’ complete lack of trust. God knew Moses did not need anyone to speak for him, but He still allowed Moses to have Aaron as his mouth-piece.

It is amazing how Moses questioned God’s wisdom and authority yet God still saw it fit to use him in ending the captivity of His people. Moses isn’t unlike many of us. We question the gifts God placed in us, we think we are not good enough and we try to hide our talents because we are afraid to fail.

Every time we refuse to act because we doubt our own ability, its like we are insulting the Creator. We are telling Him that something is wrong with His product, there’s a major defect and it needs to be sent back to the manufacturer. God knew what He was doing when He created every one of us. What you think is a defect is really a special feature in God’s hands.

You are God’s mouthpiece. Why not trust Him when He says “Go.” He knows what skills are needed and He has placed them inside of you for such a time as this.

Exodus 4:11-12 (New International Version)

¹¹ The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

You’re weird!! Yeah, I said it. Did it bring a smile to your face?

I hope so, especially because the Bible (King James Version) states, “you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people.” Throughout my life I have often felt like an oddball but when I pondered this scripture it caused me to feel that being weird was actually more than ok.

Merriam-Webster offers this definition of peculiar: “characteristic of only one person, group or thing; distinctive; different from the usual or normal; special; particular, odd, curious, eccentric, queer.”

It seems clear to me that if you were not Weird, this world would be a boring place! You were not created to simply fit in and be part of the crowd. You were made to stand out. There are things God placed in you that He did not want to be lost in the mix. If you became like everyone else, what would happen to those gifts?

Each one of us was created as unique members of one Body. It is sad when people lose sight of this and begin to conform out of a desire to fit in. It is also unfortunate when we fail to embrace each other’s individuality and instead look down on others because they don’t fit the shallow criteria of the current clique.

Everyone misses out when someone is unable to be different and walk in their unique purpose and destiny. When you sing a song to the Lord in that beautiful voice and I hear it, it enhances my life. When you create something that inspires action, thought or feeling, it changes the lives of others.

My encouragement to you today is to embrace who you are, the person that God created you to be. If people around you cannot accept the real you, find new people to be around. If there are no such people, then be content with extra one-on-one time with the Lord until He sends some true friends your way, and He will.

I personally do not want to miss out on what you have to offer the world! Let His Glory shine through you.

I Peter 2:9 (Amplified Bible)

But you are a chosen [generation], a royal priesthood, a dedicated nation, [God's] own purchased, special people, that you may set forth the wonderful deeds and display the virtues and perfections of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.