Reaching Our Quintessential Potential

One of the things that I struggled with throughout my teenage years, or my "young adult-hood" (I guess that's what some would call it... probably arguable by others) was figuring out who I was. This quest went way deeper with questions of what my strengths/weaknesses are, what kind of activities or hobbies I liked/was good at and what I wanted with my life overall. It still is a question that I have, I guess everyone always has those questions, maybe that's what life is for. Anyway, before my mission and being reactivated in the church I still didn't know. Well, maybe I thought I knew but then when the missionaries came over and I started to rededicate myself to the gospel it seemed like everything I "knew" was being questioned.
So I started to follow down this new but somewhat familiar path, which in turn ended up with me being on a mission. I wanted to come on a mission so that I could tell people that life is better with the knowledge/faith I have of Jesus Christ through the restored Gospel and its teachings. In my attempts to do this I find a great deal of people who are in the similar shoes as I was in, trying to find themselves in attempts to try different life styles. I remember when I was in middle and high school I was always trying to find out what "genre" of people I molded with the best. One year it was preppy people then maybe the next it was more of your trouble maker kids, my clothing style always changed along with music, language, attitude, desire, thoughts, and mostly the way I acted. It has led me to think about how much my life would be different if I would have continued to follow the Savior throughout my childhood.
I feel that my life now has direction with who I want to be and where I want to take my life. I find myself realizing strengths and weaknesses and knowing my limits on life. Its not like it just hit me one day but looking back at the last 2 years of my life has been a remarkable experience. I'm not saying that people wouldn't be able to find who they are if they didn't have the gospel, they probably won't reach the happiest point they can obtain in this life, I know I wouldn't have known as much and wouldn't have been as comfortable with who I am otherwise.

As I was reflecting recently I was thinking about how much different my life is now compared to then. I tried to think of what attributed to the peace and comfort that I have in my life. I'm still the same sarcastic person that people usually end up misunderstanding my humor but my life somehow seems to fit and make sense. As I was reflecting I thought about Christ and His life. From before the beginning of the world Christ has always tried to glorify and serve God. Our salvation depends on Christ and what he did from the beginning up to what he continues to do now, but I find it interesting that Christ all throughout his life just wanted to do His Father's will. He would never take credit for himself and just wanted people to obey God and live life in a way that leads them back to Him. Through this, Christ truly reached his full potential on earth, He was purely sinless and one of the most well know people still today, not to mention the most important person... thousands of years later.
Lawrence E. Corbridge expressess my desired point clearly when he said, "The United States Army says 'Be all that you can be.' But neither the Army nor you know all that you can be. The Lord says: 'Let me make of you all that you can be.' As measured by men's standards Army Rangers are impressive, but when compared with what the Lord can make of you, compared to the realization of your divine potential they truly are nothing. The realization of your amazing, astounding, and true potential happens only in the hands of the Lord." I know that it's only through the power of our Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ that we can become all we can be, and I pray that we may follow in our Savior's footsteps to attain that full satisfaction in this life as well as in the life to come.