I’ve been off this past week. Do you still remember the theme of this series? Yes, that’s right! Your problem is not your lack of gifting; your problem is that you don’t know how to manage your gift.
One of the things that keeps people from using their gifts is getting stuck and not knowing what to change.
This is so simplistic that it might hurt!
The problem may be you. Many people have tried to solve a failing marriage by concluding, “I’ve tried everything. The problem must be my circumstance. If I were married to someone else….” And they speculate of the problems that could be solved by another marriage partner. However, by the fourth or fifth marriage, it becomes clear (to the rest of the world, at least!) that the problem isn’t with the circumstances. The problem is with them. Changing the circumstances won’t solve the problem; they need to change.
Many people find other jobs, other churches, other women, other diets, and other pastimes, all trying to fix something that is broken deep inside of themselves.
Sometime it’s our character, but sometime it’s merely our perspective or opinion. Maybe it’s a false view of God. Maybe it’s a fear. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding of what is really at stake. In the words of Graham Cooke, “If you don’t like the place your thinking has led you, have another thought!” Many times, simply reframing the situation can bring clarity and peace to an otherwise confusing and tangled mess.
The problem may not be you. Jesus told His disciples to enter villages, and if they weren’t accepted, to shake the dust off their feet and move on. If they were rejected, they weren’t to blame; it was the people’s decision. Similarly, Jesus was unable to do many miracles in his hometown because of their unbelief. Jesus and His disciples could have spend an inordinate amount of time in those places. They could have spent hours of soul-searching, hoping to find some deep sin that needed to be uncovered. However, no amount of strain would have changed the fact that the people needed to change.
I’ve seen people struggling to discern the will of God, trying to figure out what they were missing, when the problem was their environment. They were trying to be fulfilled in a role that God never created them for. What wasted energy to agonize over something that’s not your fault!
How can anything be so simple and yet so complicated?
Here’s the challenge.
God says that He makes all things work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28). God has placed His Spirit within us, He has given us a spirit of wisdom, and He has made us in His image. Given that, could it be that we, as His sons and daughters who are filled by His Spirit, should be empowered to do the same?
Now it’s your job.
What are the things that you are facing, and how does God want to work through you to leverage those things for the ultimate good?
That’s how you’ll know what to change.
Unveiled Glory 