On the time limit for potential

Isaiah Chapter 5 from verse 1–8 is the scariest bible passage I’ve read.

It tells the story of a farmer that owns a piece of land. He builds up a fence, a huge watch tower, then he plants grapes on the land. He tends for the land the way one will so that they will make a profit from the land; he even includes a wine press in the land. When it’s the time to harvest from the land, he finds that the grapes are wild and that his energy is wasted. In his anger, or maybe as everybody else will do, he has decided to abandon the land and doesn’t care that there will be thorns and the land will go to waste.

This bible passage can just be understood based on its face value or really understood for what it is — that we are all investments and sooner or later, when we do not fulfill potential, we will get discarded; eventually.

My mom as other moms in the world will say, “You are only friends with certain people because you are useful to them.” she will continue with a Yoruba proverb “omode ogún oo le shey ore fun ogún odun”. This loosely translates to twenty children can’t remain friends after twenty years. One time she explained that the empty toothpaste tubes always have to go because; that’s the end of their relevance in the house.

This knowledge brings a certain fear and urgency to matters of life and life itself. In the end, most people want to be loved and wanted. What is to become of people when they fulfill potential late? Many times we have come across people; children, friends that seemed to have the world at their feet and somehow fell along the way side. Sometimes we find ourselves slowly drifting away from friends. Not because they have hurt us, but because there is no excitement to their presence in our lives. Their friendship brought with them a potential; an expectation of excitement. When this excitement fizzles out, so does the friendship. That in itself is unfulfilled potential.

It takes us back to the Bible passage. Everything in the bible is an euphemism for the our relationship with God and this passage is no exception. After God deposits his kind and gentle gifts on us, he expects that we mature to a certain level. If we don’t, there is a chance that he will turn his back on us. Then again, he will never turn his back on us when we call on him. We just don’t need to have time off from him and his presence.

In the words of Chance the Rapper

Shalom