[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure andsatisfaction and delight. – Philippians 2:13, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Twenty-four year old Veronika Scott is the CEO and Founder of The Empowerment Plan in Detroit, Michigan. A child of drug addicts, Veronika was able to overcome her challenging childhood to earn a spot in college. During school, she took a class that changed her life. As Veronika reports:

The class assignment was to design something to fill actual needs. I did my research at homeless shelters. So, the first product I created was the coat. The coat looks like a regular jacket during the day, but when you open it up, you can actually slide your feet in all the way up to your knees and velcro it closed again to make it a sleeping bag…When I was on prototype number seven, a woman came out of the shelter that I was in, and she was yelling at me. She was full on screaming! And she said, “We don’t need coats. Coats are pointless. We need jobs!” And, really, she was completely right. A coat is just a band-aid for a systemic issue. What would really have an impact is hiring the population that would need them in the first place. 

Seeing the need, Veronika created The Empowerment Plan, and through The Empowerment Plan she hires individuals from homeless shelters, trains them in sewing, manufacturing, and technology, and equips them to get back on their feet financially. Veronika is making an impact on the world around her, and she is doing so because of her belief:

No matter what you’ve gone through, you can still do a lot with what you have. I really believe that people can tackle far more than they think they can. 

There are many obstacles that prevent us from making an impact on the world for Christ, and one of those obstacles is the belief that we aren’t up to the task. We see a need. We see how the need can be filled. But we don’t think we have what it takes to fill the need.

Well, the funny thing is this: we don’t! When it comes to earthly success, we can make an impact through human determination – just like Veronika Scott has. But, when it comes to making a spiritual impact on the world, we don’t, by ourselves, have the power to succeed. Any time we attempt to impact others for Christ, the Enemy will oppose us, and our human power is no match for his supernatural power. However, the Enemy’s supernatural power is no match for God’s supernatural power, which is why we need to cling to God as the source of our power and the enabler of our success. Once we grasp how able God is to make an impact through us, we will cast aside our own weakness in exchange for His strength, and we will make the impact on the world that He created us to make. The only part human determination plays in this equation is this: we must determine – moment by moment and day by day – to yield control of our lives to Christ. When we do that, the spiritual impact will follow.