| 2 Timothy 4:7 – “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” |
Some words carry emotions in them.
Family has warmth. Friendship carries acceptance. Love holds something almost too large to name. But there is one word I have always found carries a quiet sadness in it.
That word is potential.
Potential is what could be. What might have been.
A speaker once asked a room full of executives what the most expensive piece of real estate in the world was. They named Ft. Knox. A parcel in Manhattan. A mansion in Beverly Hills. The speaker agreed those were costly. Then he told them the answer: a cemetery. Because buried there are hopes and dreams that were never realized.
John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem about a beautiful young woman named Maud Miller who met a judge from a nearby town. They were drawn to each other, but neither spoke what they felt. They drifted apart. And for the rest of their lives, each thought of the other with quiet regret. Whittier captured it in a line that has stayed in the language: “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”
A Christian has no business leaving the race unfinished. There should be no unspoken words, no unexpressed appreciation, no task left undone that the Lord has placed in his hands.
Paul put it this way near the end of his life:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7, ESV)
And then, just a few verses later, he asked Timothy to bring his books and parchments. The man who had written a dozen letters of the New Testament still wanted to learn more.
Don’t be defined by your potential. Be defined by your impact.
Give what you have today, as if it were your last chance to give it.
–Robert G. Taylor
robertgtaylor.com
