Steward Your Gifts

Growing up in a church where gifts were celebrated and going to a high school where sports and the arts were promoted, I was always surrounded by an environment where gifts and talents were encouraged and valued.
Now I did consider myself fortunate to have a few gifts, but the only problem was that I never felt like I had a gift worth celebrating.
Other than doing 300 sit-ups in a row, spinning a basketball on my finger, and bending my thumb all the way back I never believed I had any special gift or skill to offer.

There were interests that I found intriguing but when I compared myself and I saw how other people were gifted in ways I never could be I felt dumb, and in many ways, I felt as if my gifts were as useless as the letter B in the word dumb.

My mistake was that I had a false definition of what a gift was supposed to be. I thought a gift, skill, or talent was something that you did to be seen and celebrated. I thought it was something that you were automatically good at with no effort.
Looking into scripture I learned that God has a different definition of how a gift is to be appreciated and valued.

1 Peter 4:10 says “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”

When I read that scripture, it finally clicked! My gifts should be used to serve those God has placed in my life. Soon I was looking for opportunities to serve rather than to be celebrated.
Thankfully with the encouragement of my parents and mentors, the various interests I had were now being cultivated and developed into gifts that I could use to serve and help my family, church, and community.

To illustrate how this verse impacted my life let me share a short story with you.

When the great renaissance artist Michelangelo was asked how he sculpted a beautiful statue of an angle of impeccable life like artistry from a large stone he replied, “The angle was always in the rock, I just chipped away the pieces covering it up”.

Part of cultivating and revealing our gifts is the process of stewardship, God can give us a talent or gift, but we are also responsible to nourish and grow that gift to where it can serve the Kingdom of God and those around us.

In many ways, we too are like Michelangelo. We each have been given the blessing of life like he was given a stone, and like the great artist we must chisel and chip away to set our gifts and calling free.
The process can sometimes be difficult but with the help of the Holy Spirit and remembering that the purpose of our gifts to serve, I believe that your calling and talents whatever they may be can impact the world around you.

Pastor Jonathan Dawson
Youth Pastor, Full Life Christian Center
San Francisco, CA