If you’re over thirty and a Christian, you may have begun to question your mission in life. It’s easy for some people. They seem to have their entire lives laid out for them. What they want to do, what they’re good at, what God’s plans are. We read the lives of the saints, and many of them seem to have direction from early childhood.
You have to remember something while you’re reading about their lives: Even if you’re reading an entire book, you’re getting the shortened version. You might read through eighty years of experience in less than a few hours. So there’s a lot of uncertainty in this person’s life that you’re missing. Just keep that in mind if you ever start to wonder if God even does have a plan for you.
So let’s start with a few absolutes. God did give you talents. God does expect you to use them and how you use them will contribute to your salvation.
Know Your Talents
There aren’t many people who don’t question their own abilities. No matter how often our friends and family tell us that we’re good at something, we have a hard time accepting it. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The doubts you feel will do one of two things. It will make you give up, or it will make you try harder. And the Christian response to doubt is perseverance.
Our world if full of doubt. We deal with it in every aspect of our lives. Don’t let it cause despair. God gives us doubt to make us better people. Without it, we become too complacent.
Doubt is also a means to humility. We must live under the realization that our talents are gifts from God. Without the doubts, we become too reliant on our own selves. And for this reason, God gives us the ups and downs…creating a balance between encouragement and reservation.
Find Out How Your Talents Apply to Life
Sometimes we feel unfulfilled when we’re not able to use our talents in our jobs. A landscaper with musical talents might not ever use his or her abilities as a source of income…but that doesn’t mean he or she can’t use them for good. Someone with musical talent could join the local choir or visit and play for people in nursing homes. But it doesn’t even have to be this extravagant.
If you have a knack for writing songs, then write them. Even if you don’t perform for someone…you can at least perform for God. The fabled drummer boy had one simple gift…was it any less important than that of the wise men?
Use What Talent You Have
God expects us to use our gifts in whichever way He makes available to us. If that means writing a love song in a private prayer book, then it’s no less important than the famous rock star who performs a Christian song in front of thousands of people.
You have to remember the famous parable of the talents. The servants were given different amounts of money, according to their abilities. Two of them invested and doubled the money and one hid it in the ground. Even though the two who invested brought back different amounts, they were given the same rewards…to be put in charge of greater things.
It’s also noteworthy that the man with the fewest talents is the one who buried them. So it often is in life that we tell ourselves that we don’t have enough to give God…and our talents remain undeveloped.
Could it be that the servant thought the bankers would laugh at him for depositing such a small amount? How many times have we buried ourselves out of fear that we’ll be laughed at? How many times have we said, “Lord, if you would give me more talent, I would use it to honor you.”
The lesson is to use what you have, and God will give you more.