It has been a captivating thought, an all-consuming one at that. It kept me up in the middle of the night and had me alert in the early morning hours. It feels like something that maybe is elementary to some but to me it felt like peering out over a lake and watching a fog that had been hovering, slowly start to lift.
“It shouldn’t matter.”
I sat in church listening to my pastor talk about leaving an imprint on this world. He talked about platforms, leveraging our seasons, and using our gifts, all ultimately to make Jesus’ name be the main story. All things I completely agree with. But all things that feel like trigger points for me to question the seasons I am in.
An inner dialogue:
“Lord what am I doing?”
“Jesus I know you have gifted me but I don’t feel like I am using that right now.”
“Jesus do all of these pieces work together?”
Not just an inner dialogue but an all too familiar dialogue. Depending on the day of the week, I am ever swinging pendulum. That is not to say that I do not have confidence in where the Lord has me for work. Or that I believe that He has gotten it wrong when it comes to this season, I am in. I couldn’t be more confident in the fact that where I am is right where I am supposed to be. It is to say that I would dishonest if I did not say that sometimes I ask Him (on more occasions than one) how all this pieces together.
I believe we have intoxicated a generation with this idea of “callings” and “giftings.” While we have maybe prompted a willingness to do ministry, I believe we have simultaneously created an obsession with the “how.” By doing so it has created a greater resistance for God’s people to be sent out. Giftings were intended to be what we continuously offer back to the Lord. I am afraid that what they have instead become are idols.
I say this because I have been in that headspace and there often comes a temptation to go back there. I say this because I can’t tell you how many conversations, I have had with friends who wrestle with similar feelings of “surely where God has me now can’t be it.” There are dreams, ideas, and passion all flaming within so many of us. I do not downplay them. In fact, I believe fully that God knows what all those things are to each of us. I just wonder how inactive the people of God are being because they are staying in a slumber of a “dream” and prohibiting themselves to be awake to what is in front of them right now.
This is not me saying that I do not believe in God placing callings on our lives and giving us each giftings that we individually can use. This is not me saying that I don’t think we should have goals and dreams. It is me saying that I am afraid that there might be too many of us waiting to be “used” in a specific way, by a specific method, and we can’t wait. For the sake of the gospel, we can’t wait.
I can’t wait until I finish a second book.
I can’t wait until I get married.
I can’t wait until I have a job that feels like it uses my gifts.
I can’t wait until I get asked to speak at something again.
I can’t wait until I have more margin.
I can’t wait until I see the dream come to fruition.
If the goal is to make Jesus the lead story. If the desire is to see people come from
death to life. If what we want is the gospel to go forward, it shouldn’t matter how we do it.
It shouldn’t matter.
Clear as day, the Lord interrupted my questions by revealing that when I become too concerned about the “how” what I am really doing is letting selfish motives creep in. I honestly think you and I have overcomplicated it. Jesus makes the call clear to us “go and make disciples” & “go into the world and share the gospel.”
We use our gifts to make the name of Jesus known but our gifts are not the sole way we do so.
They can’t be because the young mom in the grocery store might not ever know I am a writer. They can’t be because my waiter at a restaurant might not ever see me stand on a stage and teach. They can’t be because I might not have thirty minutes with someone, it might just be 30 seconds. They can’t be because they can too easily become a crutch instead of a tool.
That’s what our gifts are, a tool. My boxing trainer tells me all the time when he teaches me new things that he is just adding tools to my tool belt. It doesn’t mean that what he has taught me in the past isn’t still something that will still work. It means that we are finding more and more ways to do the same thing.
I’m sure by now it might feel a little bit like, “geez we get it we need to lay off talking about giftings and callings.” In some ways, yes. But what I am really hoping you hear me say is that we must check our hearts. What I am really hoping you hear me say is what I felt the Lord say to me… It shouldn’t matter.
That is the posture of surrender I want to get to. The kind of surrender that says – God use me. The one that says – I don’t care where or how.
The reality is, I don’t have to ever write another word again. I don’t have to write a second book. I don’t ever have to teach again. I believe the Lord wants me to and will create that space for those things to be the case. But I do not have to have any of those things to be obedient to what He asks of me. I don’t have to have any of those things to leave an imprint or make an impact.
This is not meant to discourage you. Quite the opposite. I hope it encourages you because it encourages me. It encourages me that God’s power is not minimized to my job. It reminds me that miracles happen in the mundane too. It makes me want to open my mind up more to how the Spirit wants to potentially move at any moment. It makes me wonder how much more influence I could have when I am awakened to the fact it’s not just when I write (or whenever you do what your thing is) It feels freeing to me. It reminds me that my time in this season is not wasted. It reminds me that right where I am there are chances for me to leverage something. It is freeing but also extremely challenging. It makes me have to ask myself how much will the way I live speak. It makes me have to figure out how bold I am willing to be for the sake of the gospel.
To me, all these words written, every page printed, every book bought, none of it means anything if my day-to-day willingness to talk about Jesus is not there. If my life is not one where I daily taking up my cross and crucifying my flesh. If I am not in the word and letting Him sanctify me. If I can’t love my neighbor well or show up for my friends. If I can’t extend an invite to church or bring Jesus up in conversation with a stranger… what good are these gifts if there is no deep-rooted faith fueling them.
If in the end we don’t want the conversation people have about us to only be about what we were gifted in – then maybe we stop letting it be the only conversation we have now.
Friends, give it all you got. Use every ounce of talent and gifts He has given you. Trust that He knows the desires you have to maximize on those things in you. That is what I am having to constantly remind myself to do so.
At the same time, remember while we might each have a preferred “method” that the method can change. It can look different. Awake from the slumber. Rise up. Realize that today, this very day, people need to know about this hope we have in Jesus. There must be a sense of urgency within us. So much so that we realize, it doesn’t matter how. More so it matters when, and the when is now.
We stay low. We stay willing. We stay understanding – “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!” Psalm 115:1
