YOU ARE CAPABLE
By Tosin Adegoke
For many reasons best known to you, you have stayed so long on that spot doing nothing. You say to yourself times without number that you don’t have anybody to help you. You say to yourself that you are not able each time you see people displaying their abilities all around you.
You shrink back to your shell because you feel so inferior when you see young people like you coming out confidently to express their worth. Then you say to yourself can I ever be like these people?
Friend, you don’t need to be like them to find fulfilment, you only need to be yourself and explore all the beautiful abilities that are lying fallow within you.
“Each one of us is special. You might not be able to do what others can do with ease and precision. Similarly, what you are capable of might be unimaginable for someone else.” ― Dr Prem Jagyasi.
Don’t strive to become your friend, it is the beginning of frustration. You are uniquely made and no one is like you in the entire world.
Keep your mind off what you don’t have and pay attention to the many things you have despised on the platform of comparison and competition.
Beware that you may never touch what you don’t have until you do something with what you have. What are you waiting for while all you have are wasting away? If you continue like this, you are not only wasting years of your life, your future is also at stake.
Whatever you want to see in the years to come must be planted and nurtured now, not tomorrow because tomorrow may not be better if you do nothing today.
Therefore, dare to start with what you have and not what you don’t have. The answer to the future you so much desire is in your hands now and not in the future.
All you need to create your future has been given to you by God. Yet you are found saying, “if only I had more money, if only I had a good voice, if only I had this and that…then I could do what God wants me to do,” and all the while ignoring the seeds that God has planted in you.
Only planted seed gives a hope of harvest.
Why do you overstate the importance of the things you don’t have while what you have is underappreciated and underutilized?
God wants you to start with what He has given you. Be aware that a prolonged idleness paralyzes divine inspiration and initiative.
Don’t wait for better days to come before you do something. The days you are waiting for might come with nothing if nothing is done now. The best time is now, right where you are.
Don’t let what you cannot do keep you from doing what you can do.
Things You Should Do Now
Break The Limit
This may sound like a tired cliché, but it is so true. Challenging yourself is a good way to have an idea how much you are truly capable of. Since most people rarely, if ever, challenge themselves to find out their true ability, they have remained limited.
If we continue like this, it is a matter of time, these self-imposed limitations become who we are, and we will always bend backward anytime we’re presented with an opportunity to try something new or stretch ourselves in a way that might risk discomfort, we fall back on familiar excuses. “I don’t know how to do it.” “I’m too busy.” “I’m tired right now.” “It’s not the right time.”
Get this, if you are capable, but not available, God will raise a person with lesser ability to replace you soon. It is a matter of time, you will see young men that you can tutor doing excellently what you are not willing to do.
The limits we create in our head about what we are or are not capable of not only keep us stuck in a life that is smaller than we deserve, they make it much harder to develop confidence in our ability to effectively deal with life’s inevitable challenges. Break out of your shell.
Be Courageous
Being courageous is not just good it is necessary for movement to take place. Many who have been on a spot for a long time are not crippled. Most of them are set of men with their two legs intact but lack courage to face life fearlessly.
When courage is lost, ability will be crippled and life becomes more difficult than it really is. Most things we call mountains are nothing but the pathway to our next levels. Just a little courage would clear off the road and right before you is your celebration.
Fear establishes itself when you begin to doubt your ability. Believe you are capable and move on with courage, you will find that you have no fear.
“Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” (Deu 31:6).
Joshua, the successor of Moses was in your shoes, when it was his turn to take up the position of leadership as the next leader of God’s people. God emphasized the fact that he should be courageous.
If not for courage the young David wouldn’t have been able to bring down Goliath. It is not about your size in the physical it is about your understanding of the one that is with you. You are not small, if God be with you no one can be against you.
Engage That Little Thing
David has not for once faced any man like Goliath in his entire life before he defeated him. The appreciation of his little beginnings, coupled with his few experiences as a shepherd were the curriculum vitae that he used to apply for a face to face encounter with Goliath of Gath. Guess what, he conquered Goliath.
Remember, Saul tried to equip him with what he does not have, but those things were not compatible for him and he later resulted into using what he had, the slings and stones. To be realistic, they were the arsenals that the Lord worked with to deliver His people from the roaring Goliath.
Remember that his brothers and other trained army were present with all their arsenals intact with them, yet they could not do anything. It is not in getting what you don’t have, but engaging what you have.
“Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.” (Job 8:7).
Be Humble
Jesus Christ was not ashamed to be associated with the carpenter’s workshop. He was there until the fullness of his time. It is not the best to sit down doing nothing because you don’t want people to know that is what you are doing. Jesus the son of God was in your shoes and He was not ashamed to be called the son of the carpenter.
“And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phi 2:8).
Knowing fully well that He was the saviour of the world, Jesus left Galilee to meet John the Baptist to baptize him at Jordan. See what John said and the response of Jesus to him;
“But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him.” (Matt 3:14-15).
Jesus said “suffer it to be so now”. From the response of Jesus, we should pick wisdom that there are things that should be for now. If you embrace this your humble beginning, you will soon be pronounced and promoted God.
“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” (Jas 4:6).
Surprise Yourself Today
There is this unusual joy that comes with doing what you think you cannot do. Honestly, it’s a glorious feeling to discover you are capable of doing more than you realized you could do. But you’ll never know that feeling unless you’re willing to challenge yourself.
What limits a man is not the belief that he can do something, rather, it is the belief that he cannot do it. You must stop doubting your ability. You must practice what you are not capable of. You must build the skills that have so long been an impossibility in your mind.
This is growth: to do what you cannot do, not what you already know how to handle.
You need to stand up and do something now. There are ways you can stretch yourself and this includes setting a few healthy boundaries, creating your own work plan and remain faithful to them. This might not look easy at first, be committed to it.
There is nothing more than just a tiny inch outside of the familiar things you know how to handle well and you can delight in the new wonders around you and within you.
“If you are facing a new challenge or being asked to do something that you have never done before don’t be afraid to step out. You have more capability than you think you do but you will never see it unless you place a demand on yourself for more.” Joyce Meyer.
