My father, Mallie Frank Harrell, Jr. was a man of many talents. He could do just about anything because of his God-given abilities. I remember watching him while he was drawing and painting. He had a wonderful talent. The amazing thing is that he never had an art lesson in his life except for when I was about eight years old. He was already an accomplished artist but he decided he wanted to take some lessons. So, he enrolled in The Famous Artist Course which was located in Denver, Colorado. There were twelve instructional books about the size of a high school senior annual. A finished book was sent to the artists in Denver and they graded each book. After the third book, they sent him his money back and told him that “he knew as much about art as they did.” He was highly talented at art.
Frank Harrell was also a very talented pianist. He could play a piano like Liberace with ease. I remember listening to him play the old classics from the forties and fifties. Songs like Stardust, Blue Moon, Pennies from Heaven, In the Mood, Tenderly and many others were some of the music of our household as Dad would come home after work and unwind playing those great songs. But he could quickly switch to a classic song like Clair de Lune or some other Big Band number. Yes, my father was a very talented man who, many said looked like Tennessee Ernie Ford except he had no mustache.
So, I grew up wondering if any of those talents had rubbed off on me. Like many other boys, I thought my father was the greatest guy on earth so it was hard for me to imagine that I could ever achieve what he had with all his talents. I wondered if any of those kind of things were passed along in genetics and that I might have inherited some of them. It was something that I had wondered abut for many years. God had given my father some wonderful abilities. They were just part of him. But, I also thought about the number of hours he must have spent as a young person practicing his piano playing and learning how to be a great artist as he was. While other kids were running around the neighborhood, Dad must have been practicing the piano and learning how to become an artist.
All my life I have said…”well, one of these days, I am going to see if I any of this artistic abilities were passed along to me. About a hear and a half ago, I decided (finally) to see if I could paint anything that would be any good. So, I got in an art class to find out if I could do it. I think that sometimes, we don’t try something like art because we look at Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Van Gogh and decide that it is too difficult for the average person like me. But, I finally put all those thoughts to rest and jumped in. I have been totally surprised by what I have been able to do. I won’t say much more about that except I have been wonderfully surprised to find that maybe, just maybe, some of my father’s abilities might have been passed on to me.
I say all of that to make the point that God knows what He has put into each and every individual whether they know it or not. Most of us are unaware of the talents and abilities we might have. If we would simply get involved we might find that we would surprise ourselves. God has bestowed potential into all of us and we should find out how He wants to use that potential for His Glory. Satan will try to discourage a person because he doesn’t want someone to glorify God at all with their earthly life.
The only way for a person to glorify God is for them to come to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Then as they commit their lives to the Lord, He will guide them to where He wants them to be so that He can use them for His Glory. He will develop a person into the paths He would have them go in order to accomplish His purpose for that person. You see, no matter what a person thinks of themselves, God knows the potential He has put into each of us. And, led by the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit, we will be able to achieve all that God has placed in us before we were even born. I would refer our readers to read Jeremiah 1:5 where God says….”Before I formed you in the womb, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” God knows each of us just as well as He knew Jeremiah. He cares for us just as much as He did Jeremiah and He has a plan for everyone’s life. We can find that plan if we only trust in Jesus, be committed to Him and give the Lord our lives to be developed as He wishes.
God Knows Our Potential. We just have to be obedient to him to find it all out for ourselves. He will reveal your purpose to you as you obey Him. Yes….God Knows Our Potential even if we don’t.
