WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Genesis chapter 1






Today we are walking in: What Can You Do?




Job 34:16


If now thou hast understanding, hear H8085 this: hearken to the voice of my words.









UNDERSTAND



Today we look to the word-UNDERSTAND- H8085 shama`--to hear with attention or interest, listen to understand (language)








The Torah testifies...............


Genesis 11:7


Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand H8085 one another's speech.








The prophets proclaim..................


Nehemiah 8:2


And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear H8085 with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.









The writings bear witness...........................


1 Kings 3:9


Give therefore thy servant an understanding H8085 heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?







Chapter 5
What Can You Do?
A person cannot discover new oceans unless there is courage to lose sight of the shore.


For about two years, our little boy came to me when he was trying to do something and said, “I can’t do this.” I always responded, “There is nothing named ‘can’t’.” When he came back to me and said, “I don’t know how to do it,” I always replied, “There’s always a way to do everything.”


Years ago our young son and I were out in the yard playing ball. I was throwing the ball to him and he kept missing with the bat. Finally he became really upset and said, “I can’t do that,” to which I replied, “There’s nothing named ‘can’t’.” Slowly he repeated after me, “There’s nothing named ‘can’t’.” Then I said, “Hold the bat,” and I threw the ball. He hit the ball and then said, “There’s nothing named ‘can’t’.”


Several days later when I stopped home to drop off our daughter, our son came running and wanted to play basketball. When I said that I had to go back to the office to do some work, he insisted that he wanted to play ball with me right then. When I again replied that I had to go to the office, he said, “There’s nothing named ‘can’t’.” Do you see the point? Because he began to think that way at four years of age, the world can expect a winner.


Too often we fail in our efforts because we have been brought up believing that we cannot do some things. The people who change the world are people who have taken impossible out of their vocabularies. The men and women who make changes in history are those who come against the odds and tell the odds that it is impossible for the odds to stop them.


The people who change the world are those who have taken impossible out of their vocabularies.
Inner strength is not a strength that comes once in a while, but a continual ability that is infused into us, I believe, by Yah. Thus our potential is not limited to doing some things—we can do all things—whatever we believe and desire to do that benefits others. We can do this because the ability to do so is already deposited in us.


Potential is determined by the demands made on it by the creator of it. This is the most amazing thing I have ever discovered about potential. The potential of a thing is determined by the demands made on it by the one who made it. A creator will not call forth from his creation something he did not put into it.


If, for example, the Ford Motor Company wanted to build a car with an engine that was supposed to have a certain degree of horsepower to get up to 200 miles per hour, the engineers would create a car with enough spark plugs and pistons and other things to run at that speed. First they would design it. Then they would build it. Finally they would hire a professional to take it on a test track to clock its speed. Because they designed and built the car to run at 200 miles per hour, they would tell the driver, “Run this car until it hits 200 miles per hour.”


Now how can they demand from that car 200 miles per hour? Simple. They built into the car the ability to produce 200 miles per hour. If all other cars can only go 198 miles per hour, they have reason to believe their car will go into a race and win. They are calling forth from the car, or demanding of it, what they created it to produce.


Or let’s think about a flight of the spaceship Challenger. The people who plan a trip into space decide before the spaceship ever leaves earth when the journey will begin, where the spaceship will go, what the crew will do while in space, how long the trip will last, and where the ship will land. The people who created the spaceship and who trained the astronauts know what the ship and the crew can do. The demands they make are thus consistent with their potential.


Or suppose you want to take a trip. If you want to fly from Nassau to Chicago, you depend upon the expertise and knowledge of others to assure you that you will get there. You may look at the airplane and say, “This thing will never get me to Chicago,” but what you think doesn’t really matter because you are not the creator of either the airplane or the flight route. The folks who build and maintain the airplane would never require it to make the trip from Nassau to Chicago if they thought the plane lacked the potential to do so. The ticket agent would never schedule you for that airplane if he knew the flight didn’t go to Chicago. The potential of a thing is determined by the demands placed upon it by the creator.


Money-Back Guarantee


The same is true of you and your potential. When your dreams, visions, and goals become so real within you that you feel as if you must respond, don’t ask whether you can do it, don’t argue that you can’t. Whatever you believe hard enough, strong enough, and are committed to enough can become reality.


When you buy an appliance, a manual usually comes with it that says: “Read this before you hook it up.” It also says: “You’ve just purchased a television that can do....” You’ve never seen the television do that before, but the manual says it can and will because the manufacturer made it possible. At the end of the manual, there is usually a little phrase that says: “If there is any defect, return the merchandise to the manufacturer for a free replacement.” The manufacturer is guaranteeing the potential of the thing.


When you are on the way to fulfilling your dreams, visions, and goals, you are guaranteed satisfaction because you have the potential already within you!


You Can Do It!


You are capable of producing whatever is demanded of you to reach your potential and destiny. Within a piece of fruit is a tree, a forest even. There is a seed in you too, and that seed has the potential to become a tree—a forest even. It’s there, and you need to demand that potential be forthcoming.


Whenever you take on a legitimate responsibility, you will have the ability to meet that responsibility. Whether you use the ability deposited within you is totally up to you. How well you assume the responsibilities you have is not so much a question of how much you do, but rather how much of the available power you use. Chances are that what you are doing is not near what your ability is. What you have accomplished is a joke when compared with what you could accomplish— you are not working enough with the power provided you (emphasis on work).


If You Think It, You Can Do It


Any person who sets a limit on what he or she can do, also sets a limit on what he or she will do. No one can determine how much you can produce except you. So there is nothing in this world that should stop you from accomplishing and realizing and fulfilling and maximizing your full potential.


If you can conceive it, you can do it.


If you can conceive it, you can do it. It doesn’t matter if it has never been done—if you think it, you can do it. Likewise, if you never think it, you can’t do it.


Think about the things you’ve been thinking recently. The fact that you thought them means you can do them. Now don’t get me wrong. Thinking doesn’t get it done. Thinking implies you can do it. See yourself doing the thing in your thoughts. Make your thought into an idea, and your idea into an imagination. Take that imagination and document it into a plan. Then go to it (of course with the proper rest periods). Put your plan into action. If you thought it, you can do it.


Purpose that is translated into a vision causes things to happen and people to act. This is true because purpose creates vision, vision produces goals, goals permit the development of a plan, and a plan allows for an orderly journey.


Picture for a moment a train station with no tracks. Far in the distance walks a man, coming toward the station. Under his arm he carries wooden planks that he is throwing down before him, building the tracks to the station. The man’s goal is to use planks to build a track to the station, which is his desired destination. His vision is the completed track, and his plan is the building of the track by throwing down the planks. Thus, the realization of his goal through the implementation of his plan will take him from his present position to the desired end, so that his vision of the completed track and his purpose of reaching the station are fulfilled.


Goals Are...


Goals are steps toward the attainment of a larger purpose. They create priorities, determine decisions, dictate companions, and predict choices. Together they form the preferred flight plan to the desired destination. Let’s examine how this process works by using the image of an airline ticket and the company that stands behind it.


Long before I can book a flight or receive a ticket for a specific destination, some person (who most probably had fulfilled his potential) gave birth to a vision that led to the setting of goals and the development of a plan. A purpose to provide safe air travel in the Western Hemisphere with quality service at affordable prices may have been prompted by too many business trips with extended layovers, canceled flights, and delays caused by mechanical failures. In any case, the founder of an airline fulfilled his potential by considering the possibility of starting a new airline and purposed to do so.


This purpose led to a vision of planes servicing the entire Western Hemisphere, flying from Canada to Argentina and everywhere in-between. In his mind’s eye, the soon-to-be airline executive saw his company’s insignia on airplanes traveling throughout South America, Central America, the Caribbean, the United States, and Canada. Fueled by his desire to fulfill his potential and purpose and the accompanying vision, the originator of the vision calls in trusted friends and colleagues with whom he shares his thoughts. Others catch his vision and a new airline is founded for the stated purpose of providing safe, economical, quality air service to the Western Hemisphere.


Having a vision and receiving what you have envisioned are two very different things. Guided by their shared vision, the businessman and his friends set goals for the corporation, determining when the flights would begin, which cities would be serviced by the initial service, what the desired profit margin would be, and who would take primary responsibility for each area of operation. As these goals developed into a detailed plan, the person responsible for each facet of the business set goals for their specific areas of operation and developed plans to meet these more specific goals.


Goals Dictate Companions


After the primary and secondary goals had been set and plans developed to meet each objective, the founding committee sought people who could help them accomplish their purpose—whereby also possibly aiding them in fulfilling their potential. Guided by their desire to offer quality service at affordable prices, they hired a research firm to survey the present airline market to see which flight routes are profitable and/or underserviced and a financial consulting group to help raise capital and develop an operating budget. Their aspiration to maintain safe, well-equipped airplanes prompted them to seek a highly experienced airplane mechanic and a test pilot with an impeccable reputation. Together they purchased the planes.


Finally, their ambition to provide quality service led them to hire a personnel director who initially oversaw the development of a standard of service—after researching current airline standards—and later the hiring and management of company employees. Each of these decisions was based on the original purpose to provide safe, affordable, distinctive air service throughout the Western Hemisphere.


Goals Inform Decisions


As each of these people became part of the management team for the new corporation, they were charged with the responsibility of making their decisions based on the collective goals and purposes of the company. No one can pursue his or her own agenda if it detracts from the overall purpose of the plan. The financial consultant, for example, couldn’t require the mechanic to purchase an airplane that meets the budget guidelines but is not completely safe. Nor could the personnel director offer salaries and benefits beyond the means of the company.


The choices each made to fulfill their individual purpose were influenced by the overall purpose of the company. No one aspect can be sacrificed for the others, or the company’s reason for existence would have been jeopardized.


Purpose affects everyone’s selections.


Goals Predict Choices


Potential and purpose also serves as a guide for determining the best path to a predetermined end. Like a pilot’s flight plan, it determines not only the final destination but also the best route on any given day to reach that destination. No pilot leaves the ground without a flight plan. Before he climbs into the cockpit of the plane, he carefully studies the maps, compasses, and other instruments that can help him establish the safest, most direct course to reach the predetermined destination. Then he consults with air traffic control to determine where he needs to adjust his speed or altitude to allow for bad weather or other airplanes. Only after he has completed this task and received a stamped flight plan will he be permitted to guide the plane into the air.


Thus, when the pilot sits in the cockpit and presses the ignition to start the engines, he has with him both the end of the journey and the intended path to reach that end. Unlike a ticket holder, who has only the vision of the final destination, the pilot knows both the final destination and the safest way to reach that airport. The choices he makes on the path to the final destination will always be guided by purpose and the goals related to purpose.


Goals Create Priorities


Even as fulfilling your potential has goals directed by purpose, they also predict choices and create priorities. If the new airline set the first of September as the target date to begin service on the West Coast of the United States, the research firm will not focus their attention on the East Coast. That sphere of service will not be a priority. Likewise, if the goals include the objective of purchasing planes by the first of July, the financial consulting group will have to make the procurement of funds a priority so that this can happen. Purpose informs goals, which define priorities.


Purpose Provides a Measurement of Progress


As each target date on the master plan and the departmental plans passes, the executives are able to determine how well they are progressing toward their goal. If July passes into August, and the mechanic and the pilot have not yet procured any planes, the target date of September for beginning service on the West Coast becomes doubtful. If, however, service on the West Coast begins in mid-August, and additional planes have been purchased to begin service in the Caribbean, the organizing committee knows that they are farther toward fulfilling their purpose than they had expected to be at that point.


Without goals guided by purpose and the resulting vision, they would know that they are making progress, but they wouldn’t have any idea whether that progress matches their plans for that specified time. The value of these goal-informed evaluations cannot be overemphasized because life without specific, measurable objectives is vague and haphazard.


Obviously this description of the process of beginning a new airline is very simplistic, but I think it provides a pattern for you to understand about a person—persons—fulfilling his potential. Placing yourself in the position to make your dreams come true is the first step to making known your purpose, which enhances all of life, enabling a decisive, intentional perspective.


Fundamentals


I believe there are certain characteristics that people must understand before they can understand their potential. Realizing these basic human concepts is something that you can do to open doors that you never knew were locked against you. Some of these fundamentals may seem very obvious and simple to you, but they are very important to consider carefully before we move on.


Love. Love isn’t a decision you make, because you already have it. That’s why you can love your enemies. You can never have too much love. Spread it around. Accept it.


Self-control. Self-control is essential when growing relationships, maintaining friendships, and advancing in your journey toward your destiny. Self-control is the sign of a mature person, ready to be an example for others.


Patience. Patience is a virtue that few have much of. In an instant-message age, people are not inclined to be patient. Absorb this virtue and you will become admired for it.


Peace. The kind of inner peace you enjoy when you accept yourself as a treasure will keep you comforted no matter the toil or turmoil going on around you.


Courage. What challenge do you face? What are you afraid of? Just remember, fear is necessary for courage to exist. Courage can only be manifested in the presence of fear. So use fear to exercise your courage.


When you face difficulties, your answer is not in your counselor or the books you read. These can be helpful for input, but the answer is in you. Lean on the fundamentals and you will never go wrong.


You Are More Than You or Others Expect


One morning I said to my little boy as he ran into the room and jumped on me, “You know, I’m holding in my hands all you haven’t been yet.” Although he didn’t understand much of what I was saying, I was thinking about the vast amount of potential that lay within him just waiting to be used.


Potential is like that. It’s all you can be and become that you haven’t yet experienced. Think about it. Potential is all you are capable of being or doing or reaching. You haven’t done it yet, but you can do it.


You Can Overcome Any Habit


You can overcome every habit. You are not involved in a hopeless fight. Oh, hear me if you are suffering a habit. You can beat it.


Maybe you have resolved that you are hooked for life. That’s a lie. You have authority over that habit. Don’t walk around with the hopeless idea: “I’ll always be an addict. I’ll always be an alcoholic. I’ll always be like this.”


Within you is the ability to dominate everything on earth. It is there. It is in you. The problem isn’t that you can’t control your habit; the problem is that you won’t. People say: “I know I shouldn’t be doing this.” In reality that means: “I don’t want to do this. Something is wrong with this but I can’t help myself . ”


I have news for you—good news. It’s more “I haven’t decided to stop doing this,” than “I shouldn’t be doing this.”


Stop being ruled by cocaine or marijuana. Don’t be the victim of alcohol and money. They are all but leaves from the trees that we are supposed to be dominating. Don’t allow yourself to be at the beck and call of a little bottle that says: “Come here...come drink me.” Don’t allow yourself to be controlled by leaves from Colombia. The only way to escape these and other dominating habits is to understand your purpose for being. You are not to be dominated by sexor chemicals. You were not created to be controlled by anything. You are to control the earth.


You Are the Cream of the Crop


You are so much more than others expect from you. You are so much more than you expect from yourself. You are special, elite, the cream of the crop. Under all the junk that you may have allowed to accumulate, there is a gem ready to be polished and displayed. Beneath your unrighteous behavior there is a righteous person who wants to do the right thing. Keep striving to unclog that well. Keep trying to expose the real you.


When you wake up tomorrow morning, stretch, look in the mirror, and say: “You successful thing you.” No matter what kind of bum day is planned for you, you can decide in the morning that it’s going to be a successful one. Why? Because if you believe, it is possible the day will be good. It is possible to rejoice every day. Go ahead. Stretch. Look at the success that is just waiting to happen.


What a blessing it is to know that we can wake up tomorrow morning and have a fresh start. But too often we wake up and say: “Oh, Yah. It’s Monday.” Come on, let’s go out there and give people a firm handshake, an honest compliment, and a big smile! You will be amazed at the reactions you will receive. Your attitude is something you can do something about.


Don’t Let the World Determine Your Potential


We have allowed the world around us to determine our potential. Teachers say to students: “You are a C student.” The student then goes around believing that, and he becomes an average student for the rest of his life—an average person even. He becomes an average husband. She becomes an average wife. We become average parents of average children with average attitudes and IQs. And when we turn out to be average, our parents say: “Well, honey, you have my genes.” No. They received your attitude that was transmitted to you from that teacher.


You need to shake off what people call IQs. Do you know what IQ means? Intelligence Quotient—it’s what people believe your degree of intelligence is based upon some tests you take. These tests measure your motor skills, thinking ability, cognitive ability, reading ability, math ability, etc. Then based on these tests they say, “You are a D student. You are a D person.” You haven’t even grown up yet, and they are telling you what you are going to be and do! They don’t know what you are going to do.


Unfortunately, people believe what they are told based on those tests. There are thousands of examples in history of men and women who were put off and cast out as misfits. Later they turned out to be some of the world’s greatest leaders. We must be careful when we start assigning Intelligence Quotients to people. Your potential has nothing to do with those tests.


Only a Page


I recently attended a function to honor a gentleman in our community—a tremendous man. Several people gave speeches about him, talking about his many accomplishments. As I sat there I thought, Wow! If you only knew.


A booklet on the table listed all the things he had accomplished. As I looked at it I thought, Is that all—half a page? There’s a book on that man but here he only has a page.


Rest, Not Retirement


There are times when we get tired of our jobs. In fact, we get so tired that we look forward to retirement. And when we get to that age, we just want to retire—we want to stop working permanently. But I believe this is wrong—wrong thinking. We should be thinking rest, not retirement. Why? Because we need to keep creating and developing and dominating and ruling for as long as possible. The wealth of your potential is so rich it requires a lifetime and beyond to bring it all out.


Try to do as much now as you can. Pack as much as you can into the 70 to 100 years you have here. Go for it. Go for a hunk of gold. Go for the mountain that has the gold in it. Go for the whole thing. Because if you can think it, you can do it.


Principles


1. The potential of a thing is related to its source.


2. Your potential is greater than you can ever imagine.


3. Potential is determined by the demands made on it by its creator.


4. If you can think it, you can do it.


5. Your potential is everything you need to dominate any bad habit or addiction.


6. The wealth of your potential is so rich it requires a lifetime to bring it all out.