In Mark 2:17 Jesus responds to the Pharisees who couldn’t understand why he would eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners:
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Jesus came for a specific kind of people. He came for a specific purpose. The fulfillment of that purpose had a clear direction.
Our lives are equipped in the same way. We have a specific kind of people we can relate to and communicate with. We have a specific purpose and the potential to fulfill it. That purpose comes with a specific direction.
It’s possible however to discover your vehicle and find yourself on the wrong road. Certain vehicles work better for specific kinds of conditions and purposes. For instance I have a mountain bike, and that vehicle is perfect for a specific kind of road (a single track down a mountain). That bike which is perfect for one road would not work to take my family of 6 to Lake Michigan. We wouldn’t make it down the driveway. The van that we own however, would be perfect for that kind of trip. It has more than one seat and room for storage and an engine.
Our potential needs the right environment to be realized. A apple seed that lives in a little pouch on a shelf in a store will never realize it’s potential in that environment. But when you take those seeds out of the pouch and put them in the dirt with some water and sun they start becoming everything they were created to be.
If we find ourselves frustrated with the lack of growth, it’s possible that we find ourselves on the wrong road. It would be really frustrating to try to drive the van on a mountain biking trial. The potential of the van wouldn’t be able to be realized, because it would quickly get stuck between some trees.
The wrong road is not a bad road, it’s just the wrong road. But once you find out it’s the wrong road, it becomes a bad road to continue to travel. Discover the right road, by defining your vehicle. Travel the right road and discover what your vehicle is really capable of.