Point to Ponder: God deserves our best.
Insight: We rarely see God’s good purpose in pain or failure or embarrassment while it is happening. Forgotten experiences are worthless; that’s a good reason to keep a spiritual journal. Only in hindsight do we understand how God intended a problem for good.
He shaped us for a purpose, and He expects us to make the most of what we have been given. He doesn’t want us to worry about or covet abilities we don’t have. Instead He wants us to focus on talents He has given us to use.
Begin by assessing our gifts and abilities –We need to take a long, honest look at what we are good at and what we’re not good at. Make a list. Ask other people for the candid opinion. Tell them you’re searching for the truth, not fishing for compliment. Spiritual gifts and natural abilities are always confirmed by others.
The best way to discover our gifts and abilities is to experiment with different areas of service. Just start serving, experimenting with different ministries, and then we will discover our gifts. Until we’re actually involved in serving, we’re not going to know what we’re good at.
Consider your heart and personality – Ask yourself questions: What do I really enjoy doing most? When do I feel the most fully alive? What am I doing when I lose track of time? Do I like routine or variety? Do I prefer serving with a team or myself? Am I more introverted or extroverted? Am I more a thinker or a feeler? Which do I enjoy more—competing or cooperating?
Examine our experiences and extract lessons we have learned – We rarely see God’s good purpose in pain or failure or embarrassment while it is happening. Forgotten experiences are worthless; that’s a good reason to keep a spiritual journal. Only in hindsight do we understand how God intended a problem for good. Extracting the lessons from our experiences take time, consider a weekend of lifetime review, where you pause to see how God has worked in the various defining moments of our life and consider how He wants to use those lessons to help others.
Accept and enjoy your SHAPE – Since God knows what’s best for us, we should gratefully accept the way He fashioned us. Our shape was sovereignly determined by God for His purpose, so we shouldn’t resent it or reject it. Instead of trying to reshape ourselves to be like someone else, we should celebrate the shape God has given only to each one of us.
Keep developing your SHAPE – Jesus’ parable of the talents illustrates that God expects us to make the most of what He has given us. We are to cultivate our gifts and abilities, keep our hearts aflame, grow our character and personality, and broaden our experiences so we will be increasingly more effective in our service.
If you don’t utilize the abilities and skills God has given you, you will lose them. Jesus taught the parable of the talents to emphasize this truth. Fail to use what you’ve been given and you’ll lose it. Use the ability you’ve been given and God will increase it. Don’t settle for a half developed gift.
My thoughts: Wow, I am late and it has been a trying day but I am still blogging. Speaking about our spiritual gifts, today while cleaning boxes and boxes of paperwork I found my old journals dating back over 15+ years and I also found a dream journal. I was totally shocked. I don’t even recall keeping a dream journal during that time in my life but I guess I was wrong. That’s one of the reasons that journaling is so important because we do forget. Obviously going back and reviewing them from time to time is also a good idea. As I sat there and read my dream journal I was thinking how God has expanded my gifts of dreams and visions in the last few years. Like Rick Warren mentions in this chapter, don’t wish you had someone else’s gifts. He gave you the gifts you have for a reason. Embrace it, share it, and use it for God’s glory.
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