The Hope QuotientSample

Let me give you a powerful question. This question can lift you out of discouragement, transform your mood, even turn around a family, a company, a church. Practicing this question is so powerful it can become a frame of reference for how you look at everything. It can become a habit. And when it becomes a lifestyle, it affects everybody.

The question is: What can this become?

I believe this question was uppermost in Jesus’ mind every time He looked at His disciples. Jesus looked at some young, inexperienced men who were a mess, and made an astounding statement: “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”

What made Jesus so effective? What made Him the most magnetic leader ever? What was it about Jesus that liberated people from their pasts and freed them to become something they’d never dreamed? It’s this:

Jesus was not focused on what people were like. 

Jesus was focused on what they could become. 

Take the discouraged parent of a teenager. The minute she focuses on what her teenager can become, anything is possible. 

Take a discouraged spouse. Get them focused on what their marriage can become, and anything is possible. 

Take a Christian focused on their spiritual life right now. The minute they focus on what their relationship with God can become, anything is possible. 

Take a person who wishes he was in better shape physically. The minute he focuses on what he could become, all kinds of possibilities emerge.

Everything changes when we ask the question, “Am I able to see things not as they are right now but in terms of what they can become?”

“I will make you become fishers of men,” Jesus said, and by following through on His word, He changed, is changing, and will change the world. Forever.

Think Up:

Think of how things can become in your life.

How can you move from focusing on things as they are, to seeing things as they might become? (Read on).