Day 32: Using what God gave you

..::*+ Small Talk +*::..
Although exam is coming near, later I’ll be going for vacation with my church friends.
*you all can go vacation, I also can… Grins*
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Day 32: Using what God gave you

What you are is God’s Gift to you;
what you do with yourself is your gift to God.
Danish proverb

God shaped you with purpose, and He expects us to make the most of what we have been given. Focus on the talents that He has given you.

When you attempt to serve God in ways you’re not shaped to serve, it feels like forcing a square peg into a round hole. It’s frustrating and produces limited results.
Rick Warren – The Purpose Driven Life

To full use of what God has given us, we must discover your shape, learn to accept and enjoy it, and then develop it to its fullest potential.

Discover your shape

Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Ephesians 5:17

Don’t waste your day here on earth, start find out what God’s will is today.

Begin by assessing your gifts and abilities. Understand yourself – your good and bad. Make a list of it. Ask people around for their opinion about you. But you must inform them that you’re searching for the truth, not fishing for a compliment. We can confirm our spiritual gifts and natural abilities from others.

The best way to understand your gifts and abilities is to experiment with different areas of service. This is also what Stephanie, Jia Jin, and others suggested to me. Help out in various teams and you will see results, receive confirmation from others and realized “God has gifted me to do this!” Experimenting is, therefore, important.

Until you are actually involved in serving, you are not going to know what you are good at.
Rick Warren – The Purpose Driven Life

We all have many hidden talents in us. What matters is just to the so-called “awaken” them. Try out things that you never try before, but of course, not sinning. Start serving, not to wait and draw charts or whatever to figure out your gifts before you serve. You will know yourself better along the way when you are serving. When it does not work out, call it an “experiment”, not a failure. One day, you will learn what you’re good at.

Consider your heart and your personality

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.
Galatians 6:4 The Message

Ask yourself if you really enjoy doing the work or not, when do you feel the most fully alive, what are you doing when you lose track of time? There are a lot of things you can ask yourself to understand yourself better. And then ask others if those are also what they see in you. This will help you understand yourself.
Examine your experiences and extract the lessons you have learned.

Forgotten experiences are worthless.
Rick Warren – The Purpose Driven Life

We seldom realize what God’s good intention in every pain or failure or embarrassment while it is happening. It happens to every one of us. Often we do not see further than what we can see. This causes our faith to be weak too. Look far, look wide. But extracting the lessons from your experiences takes time. Pause and see how God has worked in your life. Consider how He wants to use those lessons to help others.

Accept and enjoy your shape
God knows what is the best for us. Therefore, don’t because of tiny stuffs you blame God for not providing what you want.

But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
Romans 9:20-21

Don’t reject what God has shaped you; He has his own purpose for that. Instead, we should celebrate the shape God has given specially to you.

Part of accepting your shape is recognizing your limitations. No one is perfect, else he will be God.

We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the field God has assigned to us, a field that reaches even to you.
2 Corinthians 10:13

Therefore, know the boundary – the field, or the sphere of service. We do not run to a different lane during a running competition.

… and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1

Focus on your shape, and enjoy using it. Satan will often try to steal the joy of service by tempting you to compare your ministry with others, and conform you ministry to the expectations of others. Don’t fall for it. In fact in Bible we are warned not to compare with each other:

Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else.
Galatians 6:4

There are 2 reasons why we should not compare ourselves to another:
1. You will always find someone who seems to be doing a better job than you and you will become discouraged.
2. You will always find someone who doesn’t seem as effective as you and you will get full of pride.

Both of these take you out of service and rob your joy. It is foolish to compare ourselves to other people.
Paul always faces with critics and misunderstanding about his service. His respond, however, is always the same: Avoid comparisons, resist exaggerations, and seek only God’s commendation. This is also why God used Paul so greatly.

If my life is fruitless, it doesn’t matter who praises me; and if my life fruitful, it doesn’t matter who criticizes me.
John Bunyan

Keep developing your shape
Jesus’ parable about the story of talents shows that God expects us to make the most of what He gives us. We need to use our shapes to be more effective in our service. It’s the same like exercising your muscles: If you don’t exercise them often, they weaken and atrophy. Likewise you will lose abilities and skills God has given you. From the same story of talents, we learned that God will increase the talents that we have. Through practice our gifts can be enlarged. Therefore, don’t settle down with your gifts. Then can be expanded. Take advantages of every training opportunity to develop you shape and sharpen your serving skills.

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
1 Corinthians 9:25

I am going for the eternal crown. What about you?

Vincent