Don't hide your gifts

I was thinking today about all the gifts and abilities I have, and it's amazing just how many I have been blessed with. We often don't stop to think about it but if we did, we would soon realise just how gifted we all really are. The problem is that we often compare our own gifts with the gifts others have, and when we do that we often think less of ourselves and think there is always someone better. We soon take on the mentality that we are just not good enough and we become envious and inevitably we end up keeping our gift to ourselves and not using it as God had intended. 

Romans 12:5-6 in The Message says "So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't."

When we know God has gifted us we just need to get out there and use that gift, put it to work. We need to understand that God knew what He was doing when He created us. He put those gifts in us so we can fulfil our purpose. If He has gifted us with something, we need to put it to work and if we see someone else with another gift we don't have, we do not need to become envious. They too, have their own purpose to fill.  

Everybody has their differences. There are the obvious physical differences, it doesn't take long to notice if one person has brown hair and another blonde. Then there are the less obvious differences that we can cover, like someone having a scar on their chest, this is a difference that we don't see immediatly. There can be differences in our character or personality, some of us outgoing, others can be shy. Then there is our differences in the gifts and talents we have. There are so many different variations of who we could have been but God chose to make us the way that we are.

"For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." (Romans 12:3-4)

Each different part of the body has a separate function. I know that my feet are there to help me stand and walk around, my fingers help me hold onto things, my ears allow me to listen, my heart pumps blood and my brain keeps it all in order. Just like our human body parts have different functions, the body of Christ works in the same way and we all need to fulfill our role so that Gods works can take place.

So thinking about the gifts that I have been given, I started thinking about what I may be keeping hidden from people. What gifts am I not sharing because I think I can't do it? Personally, I do not believe myself to be much of a public speaker, the idea of speaking in front of people scares me, but in times when I have had to speak in front of people, it doesn't matter how nervous I am, I always make it through without fail, and the words just flow from my mouth. Is this a gift that I need to explore more? It's possible. It's quite possible that God wants to use me to speak to people but the devil is holding me back and filling me with fear. Filling me with ideas that I can't speak in front of others, that I will not be engaging as other speakers we see. The enemy will fill our heads with all sorts of things to hold us back and when we allow him to do that, we soon start to hide our gifts from the world. 

One of my more obvious gifts is in singing. It is something that I've always loved and always done, but when it came to joining the worship team at my church, I found it difficult. I had heard others on Sunday mornings and I believed they were so much better than I was. I started to think to myself that there was nothing that I could bring to the team that they didn't already have. The problem with thinking like that is that as I kept my gift to myself, I wasn't allowing it to grow. After I finally gave in to my fear, praise God, I made it onto the team. I realise now the error in my thinking. When I first thought about joining the team, it was about what I could bring to them. I had it backwards, it's not about what "I" can bring, it's about what God can do through us as a team. Joining the worship team was not about me at all, it was about fulfilling God's purpose in my life. It was about taking my place in Christ's body. I know there is a lot more for me, being on the worship team uses just one of my talents, and I know that there's more there. It's time for me to discover what my giftings are, take them out of hiding and put them to practice.

Sometimes it helps to take some time out and think about what it is you might be hiding from the world. Remember, God gave you your gifts for a reason, don't let the fear of not being good enough take away your opportunity to take your place in the body of Christ.

Thankful for:  Running Hot Water!

This may seem like another one of those crazy things to be thankful for. You may read that and think... what? You're thankful for water? Well yes, I am! Having running hot water is such a blessing that some of us probably don't take time to appreciate. In the winter months, I often get cold, and the fastest way I find to warm myself up is to jump in a nice hot shower. As a young girl growing up in a big family my parents often found themselves in some financial struggles. A couple of times, a bill wouldn't be paid in time, and the hot water was no longer. No matter how much you wanted the water to warm up, it wasn't going to, it was cold! Those days, we would mostly have to boil water and wash ourselves with a cloth because to us, having a cold shower was just not an option. Within a couple of days things were usually sorted and our hot water was back, and we would be showering in hot water again without even a second thought about how amazing it was to have it. Yet there are people who may never know the greatness that is 'running hot water'. Some may not even understand the idea of even having hot water. I personally, could not imagine how life would be without it. If you don't appreciate the hot water you've got, see if you can go without it for a week. I'm pretty sure you will soon realise what I have learnt, that hot water really is a blessing.