It was once said, “The graveyard is the richest and wealthiest place.”

How is that possible? Well, the graveyard is filled with unfulfilled dreams, inventions that were never created and untapped potential that did not facilitate its purpose.

Possible doctors, lawyers, ministers, entertainers and some of the world’s finest have left us with a valuable lesson: “Don’t let death beat you to the finish line!” Though God has mapped out our timeline of life, we have been given the ability to kill or keep our dreams alive.

How is it that some dreams die prematurely? Dreams die because of one’s inability to see beyond the natural eye and mainly because of one allowing the words of others to penetrate the brain, therefore birthing doubt and uncertainty.

Many of us were once told that we were going to be nothing. As the children from Compton, the Bronx, or the wild 100’s in Chicago were told, we also were told that being from Saratoga, Cypress Manor, the Hofflers, Jericho and the like meant we would be locked up, on drugs or even dead before the age of 21.

Let me speak for all of us around the world who heard those words, but did not allow them to take root, by saying, “Thank you!”

I bless God, because it’s amazing, awesome, wonderful and rewarding that GOD chooses not to look at where we are, but where we are going. He sees not who we are, but who we will be. He focuses not on our premise but on His promise for our life. Despite others’ false prophecies on our lives and despite the names we’ve all been called — whether “deadbeat,” “nobody,” “lazy,” “whore,” “drug dealer,” “thug,” “drug addict” or whatever — God looks at us, sees through the debris of life and proclaims loudly in the ears of witnesses by calling us the name “Potential.”

Despite living in the roughest apartment complex or the poorest trailer park, you have inside of you potential. Today’s premise cannot forfeit tomorrow’s promise! Be encouraged today, beloved, to know that you, too, can see your dreams become reality.

It begins with what you say — for life and death is in your words — but it is manifest in what you do. Here is an easy formula: Think, speak, act. There are many who never gave up on me and there are many who will not give up on you. GOD believes in you no matter what!

Don’t live life to prove people wrong. Live life to see your dreams come reality! Think about it. Agape.