Is unrealized potential a sin?
Max DePree writes that unrealized potential is a sin—a very serious sin. This is a story about the sin of unrealized potential—the tragedy of the unopened gift. This is why one of the great temptations most of us face that could block us from getting out of the boat is comfort. Comfort will often keep us from growth.
Fifty years ago, we began to orient our lives around one of the great growth-avoidance inventions of all time: TV. You didn’t have to think, focus your attention, or follow a closely reasoned chain of thought when you were watching Leave It to Beaver. But even then you had to get up out of your chair, walk all the way to the set, laboriously change the channel by hand—which was exhausting, so we invented the . . . remote control. Now mankind could change channels from the La-Z-Boy, as God intended.
You want to see how devoted we are to comfort? Walk into the average American home and hide the remote control, and watch what happens. Life without the remote control is an unbearable burden for the average American family. Then someone invented a TV with a beeper so that when you clap your hands, the remote control will beep until you find it.
What’s most depressing about all this is that I know some people will read this chapter and the only thing they will take away from it is, I gotta get one of those TVs with a beeper for the remote.
Ortberg, John (2005). If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat (pp. 46-47). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
