..To continue on from ” Jack of All Trades”..
We have to understand the principles of understanding a Natural Talent and Spiritual Gifts. When you get so involved with life and overloading your plate by being a “Jack of All Tades” you get confused in understanding the difference between a talent and a spiritual gift. One, first has to know their purpose in life to know how to use your talents and gifts and how to use them for God’s purpose in your life. I have to ask “Do your know your purpose ?” What has God placed you on this earth for? Until you know this can you really be effective in his kingdom and can you truly seek to understand the talents and gifts he has given you?
We often try to separate the two of them using our talents for our purpose and our Spiritual Gifts only for God purposes. Wait..wait.. Think about that… it should actually convict you in understanding that we first must acknowledge that all that we have comes from God. That being said we have to make the connection that their is no separation. You can’t just say “I’ll give you just a piece of me God” the rest is mine for my purpose or I’ll just do this at church or in the ministry and my other talents I’ll use elsewhere. Once you recognize what your gifts and talents are you have to then go into a season of preparation and development of those gifts and talents. Just because it has been given to you doesn’t mean that you don’t have to cultivate the gift.
For Example:
God has given you the talent of public speaking of connecting to people. Knowing this you decide to give a public speech in front of 1,000 people about a topic that you haven’t taken the due diligence to research and understand the facts of the issue and how it relates to the audience. You decide i’m a good speaker I can relate to people “I got this in the bag”.
You walk up to the podium and it hits you.. “This is a lot of people”.. “why is the light beaming in my face”… “What do I sound like on these loud speakers”…”I wish the photographer would turn off the flash”… “I didn’t know the news media would be here” ..”I cant concentrate with the woman with the crying baby”… “wait…What’s my opening line’?
Has a similar situation ever happened to you? Have you relied so heavily on the comfort of what you thought you knew that you decided not to prepare you self? We get so caught up in self pride or gloating that we forget that God rewards preparation. We should always be prepared for the things within our control. Even if something changes a circumstance that we prepared for we should rest in the reassurance that God will reward our preparation with support to adapt to the change.
Check out this table:
