Use Your Gift | The Worshipper's Thought of the Day

Reading my Twitter timeline last Sunday morning, I ran across the following tweet:

"If you not going to use the Gift God gave you, He can take it away and give it to someone who will."

I can't recall how many times I have heard this and similar statements regarding the use of our GOD-given gifts throughout my life.  My mind got to meditating on that statement; and THIS TIME, something different happened when I considered what had been communicated.  It occurred to me that, as well-intended as its meaning may be, the idea of unused gifts being taken away is not the most accurate expression of GOD's perspective on the matter.

Allow me to backtrack for a minute, if you will.  When I was a college freshman, I would attend the midweek interdenominational worship services held on campus.  One day, I stopped by the office of the chaplain who conducted those services with a question.  After answering my query, this dear, sweet woman of GOD, who was also the faculty/staff advisor for the university's gospel choir, expressed to me that she heard me singing during the corporate worship and proceeded to ask why I wasn't a member.  I explained that singing publicly in choirs was not my "thing," neither was it something that I had done before.  I just love to worship GOD;  but anyone who knows Lois Dejean knows that my answer did not phase her one bit.  She recognized the gift I had to sing and responded, "If you don't use it, GOD will take it back."  Because I loved to worship GOD in song and didn't know any better, fear gripped me at the thought of losing the gift GOD had given me.  So I initially joined the gospel choir out of fear that my gift could be taken if gone unused.

I thank GOD for the power of His Word and how my journey of discovery in the Bible has renewed my mind concerning a number of things, this being one of them.  It took reading that tweet this morning to realize how my mind had been renewed in yet ANOTHER area of my life thanks to GOD's Word.  While I'm not particularly sure of the exact scriptural background behind the thinking that GOD would take back His unused gifts, I presume this idea is based on the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30).  Without going into a detailed study of this parable, the big idea here is that the talents (ie currency) given to the unprofitable servant were taken back by his master and given to the most profitable servant.

The talents in this parable were tangible, but our gifts are intangible.  Furthermore, even though they may be manifested at various times throughout our lives, our gifts came here with us at birth.  We were given life to fulfill a GOD-ordained purpose; therefore, the tools (ie gifts) we've been given by Him to do so are just as irrevocable as His purposes for our lives.  Therefore, what we see here in the parable of the talents are not at all gifts but rather divinely-allocated resources for the fulfillment of purpose.  The servants were distributed resources by the master according to their purpose.  It's also safe to say that more resources were allocated to the servants who were already operating in their area(s) of gifting to a greater degree.  Remember: everything physical manifests from the spiritual.  We can't wait until we receive resources to operate in our area(s) of gifting because it's the use of our gifts that attracts resources.  GOD simply will not fund a vision that has no plan, and He won't breathe life into faith declarations that aren't backed up by corresponding faith actions.  He will NEVER take back our unused gifts; but when we're either too fearful or lazy to operate where we are in expectation of greater, we can't expect GOD to releases resources and provision to take us to the next level.