Who Gave You Those Mad Skills?

You think you have mad skills? Are you amazingly good at something? Thinking it is you? Do you know where those skills, talents, gifts, abilities actually come from? Certainly you have had to practice and refine them but where does the seed of the skill originate?

There is a passage in Exodus that always gives me pause to think and reflect on Yahweh's hand in my life. He knit me together in my mother's womb, he spoke into my life, he planted seeds to bloom as I grow, he gave me the raw materials that he would later build on. This includes my skills and abilities. The passage is found in  Exodus 31, a not exciting passage as the Lord was giving Moses the details of the tabernacle that would be built. But consider this:

“See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills." (Exodus 31:2-3)

And for people who think it was a one off:

"Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you." (v. 6) 

Artisans of every stripe, whether painters or builders, bakers or pilots, writers or home makers, have this nature of highs and lows. They can go from feeling really great about their abilities to feeling lost in the darkness of self-doubt. That's because we are trying to define who we are and what we do outside of the intended purpose. Everything we have been given has been intended to bring glory to the Lord and to be focused on his direction. These are not skills and abilities that are for personal glory or fame. These are not skills to be used selfishly but are given as means to bless our God and other people. They are not to be done and stored away in secret but to be put on display and acknowledged as coming from the Lord.

Too often we take the glory for ourselves but if we want to see real skills then we need to allow the power of the Lord to flow through us, bringing those skills to the highest heights. Those skills, talents and abilities are gifts from Yahweh to be used as he directs for his purpose and glory. Acknowledge that and see what he does through you.

The Misuse Of God's Gifts

If you are a member of the Body of Christ, you are called, equipped and anointed for the function you have been given. No one can exist in Jesus outside of the Body. Many try due to their lack of maturity. They are too busy looking at the imperfections of other people to understand the grace that has been applied to their own. They use others as an excuse to separate instead of a reason to serve. We are the Body and God has appointed us to our place in it. Verify the truth of the matter in 1 Corinthians 12.

You have been given certain gifts by the Spirit in order to function within the Body. These are not natural to us but are supernatural, given to us supernaturally. We cannot serve God in a way that pleases him in our natural, but he equips us to serve him in the supernatural. The question is, will we use these gifts to faithfully serve his will, or will we use them selfishly for our own gain? Solomon is a good illustration.

King Solomon knew enough to know he was over his head. What he had been called and anointed to do was beyond his own natural ability, and he was wise enough to realize it. So when God asked him what he could give Solomon, this young, wet behind the ears, newly appointed king asked for two things: wisdom and knowledge. But take note of why he wanted these gifts from God:

Lord God, you were always loyal to my father David, and now you have made me king of Israel. I am supposed to rule these people, but there are as many of them as there are specks of dust on the ground. So keep the promise you made to my father and make me wise. Give me the knowledge I’ll need to be the king of this great nation of yours. (2 Chronicles 1:8-10)

Solomon did not ask for his own benefit but so that he could fulfill his calling, the task for which he was anointed, which is why we receive gifts from the Spirit. God was pleased with this and because he asked with this motivation he also provided Solomon with everything else. But Solomon did not stay so pure in his motivation.

Solomon allowed his eyes to turn inward. He indulged in the privilege of his position. Instead of serving God by serving God's great nation, Solomon started serving his own selfish desires. How easy it is to turn what God gives us to serve him into something for selfish gain.

As great as Solomon was he could have become more. He seeded things into his children which caused the split in the kingdom. Instead of being a united people for the glory of God, they became spoiled and selfish, requiring the great correction God visited on them. We are not too far from this ourselves, even in the early days of the Church.

When apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, guiding him in the strengthening of the Church in Ephesus, he said something that we need to take note of today:

You needed to warn them to stop wasting their time on senseless stories and endless lists of ancestors. Such things only cause arguments. They don’t help anyone to do God’s work that can only be done by faith. (1 Timothy 1:4)

We can never forget the purpose of our calling and the focus we have been given. There should never be anything that we are involved in that does not help us to do God's work. That is the entire focus of our life, to do God's work. It is not a part-time thing. It is not a weekend thing. It is something that we are occupied with every moment of our day, and it is the reason we have been equipped by the Spirit.

It is possible for us to waste the gifts of the Spirit, to use them for ourselves instead of for Jesus in the context of the Body. It is possible but it will prove to be our ruin as it ruined Solomon. We will never reach the heights that God has intended for us and we will seed things that will prove to be the undoing of other people as well. For this we will have to give an account. Don't forget the parable of the talents.

Perhaps it is time to allow the Spirit to take an inventory of where we are with the gifts we have been given, and permit him to remove what is not a help in doing God's work by faith.

A God Who Doesn't Waste Anything

I fell in love with reading when I was in grade five. I remember the book well. I happened upon it by chance. Science fiction that grabbed my imagination and transported me to a realm of endless possibilities. I was hooked. My aspiration as a young teen was to find an easy job that would provide me enough money to pay for a one room apartment, food and a book a day. I wanted to spend my life just reading.

I fell in love with writing the same day I fell in love with a girl. Oh, there was something that always pulled at me to write, since I was very young. I wrote a Gilligan's Island skit when I was in grade five for a class project. I was published by the time I was in grade six; a children's book illustrated by a fellow classmate. But the real love of writing did not take hold until I feel in love with a girl and suddenly the heart became my canvas.

Poetry was my choice of expression and my first poem was about my first love. Love, the light and dark sides, became my constant subject. I remember the thrill of my grade ten teacher reading that first poem and her reaction of asking me if I had really written it. She was amazed that this thing had come from me and I was stocked that she was amazed. She became my biggest support. My need for an audience was born.

All I really every wanted from life was to read and to write; to explore new worlds and to create them; to allow my pen to become a paint brush, to reveal what so many people miss in life. I wanted to contribute to the beauty of this world, the wonder of its imagination. But then something even more magical happened to me.

Jesus met with me and gave me an invitation I could not refuse.

Ever since that time I have explored a realm that is beyond most people's imaginations; even writer's. I realize how man has tried to anchor this realm in something tangible, something explainable, something concrete. But the Kingdom of God is far greater than any of man's attempts to express it, something that can only really be experienced when our spirit dances with God's. It is a place of incredible beauty and endless possibilities. It is a place where love shapes everything and acceptance pours down on us like rain. It is an inspiring place where we swim in the air of God's grace and joy is our constant companion. There are no chains here, no fences, no great walls or tiresome burdens. There is only trust, hope, faith, belief.

But what about my other great loves? What about the creativity that my God knit into my being? What about my great passion for writing and the talent that God gave to me? I got so lost in the corporate thinking of man's idea of the Church, I forgot. I became so pre-occupied as a middle manager of this corporation, I let it slip away. Did I lose the beauty of God's great gift of creativity, the wide open places with endless skies, to be lost in a city of great concrete structures where the sky is rarely seen and there is no place just to run?

These were my thoughts yesterday as I examined how to get back to the place God has called me to, and then I realized something. God is is sovereign. He never let's anything go to waste. As I mulled over these two things that I am certain about God, I realized some other things:

In the last ten years of my life, I have written at least ten books, if not twenty. Every day I meet with my readers to discuss our favorite subject: Jesus. I have written more than would have been possible any other way. Ten to twenty books have been birthed in me.

I get to paint vivid portraits on living canvases every Sunday as I tell stories about our incredible Jesus. As I share with the Body of Christ the wonder of our God and remind them with bright colours who he is and who we are to him, I get to allow my spirit to run in wide open spaces.

As for my love affair with my audience, I am the father of ten mind-blowing children. I am a man blessed beyond this world's comprehension. These are my real audience, the ones I get to share my life with every day, to create wonderful stories that will eventually be passed on to their children and hopefully to the children after them. The subject of these stories has never changed; it is still all about love. Only now, it is a love that goes beyond the limits of the human heart and imagination and explodes in a place of endless possibilities.

Oh, the wonder of our God and the mysteries of his ways! He doesn't waste anything.