Create! Produce! Maximize!

Earlier this year in February, I wrote this message on my kitchen blackboard as a reminder to myself and to my children to keep tapping into purpose in spite of what's going on in the world around us. 2020 has been one of the most unpredictable years that I've ever seen. By the time that July rolled around, I was literally waiting on Ashton Kutcher to jump out of somewhere...anywhere...and shout, "Hello world, you've all been punk'd!" but that hasn't happened and as much as I'd like to call this pandemic, innocent lives that were lost to police brutality and the economic state of our world a hoax, the truth is this year has been nothing short of a series of unfortunate events.

The good thing is that no matter how bad things get around us, God never intended for the world to overtake us. His first directive to mankind is to replenish the earth and subdue it; the word subdue means to bring under control by force. Has your world been spiraling out of control due to the loss of income from this pandemic? Do you know someone who has suffered a financial blow that they haven't recovered from? God says that we can, by force, take control of our worlds, thus causing the world around us to come under subjection to the world that we have created. One of the ways that He intends for us to do that is

to utilize and monetize our gifts. In the very beginning, there was no need for money; God supplied everything that man would need within the Garden and He intended for mankind to make those resources beneficial for themselves. Now, fast forward to today, and there is no way that we can live without money, so God made sure that we'd be able to still dominate and not be overtaken by the world's economic system IF, and that's a huge if, we tap into the resources within us. Here it is within one of my favorite scriptures, Deuteronomy 8:18 ESV: You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He Who gives you the power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers, as it is to this day. The Message translation says it this way: Remember that God, your God, gave you the strength to produce all this wealth so as to confirm the covenant that he promised to your ancestors- as it is today. See it? Create...Produce...The word create means to make or produce something, to cause something new to exist. I could go into a whole study about this; I'll do that later, but for now I want you to think on this promise that God gave to us. We have within us the power or ability to maximize, make as large or great as possible, the talents (gifts) that God has placed within us. If we are diligent to work with what God gave us, no matter what the economy looks like nor what the unemployment rate is, we can continue to thrive! Notice that He didn't say that it would be easy; if it were, the words power or strength would not have been used within this Scripture. However, because He has promised it to you, know that He and all of heaven will back you as you create, produce and maximize your potential!