It feels good to do what God made you to do.
Like stained glass, our different personalities reflect God’s light in many colors and patterns. This blesses the family of God with depth and variety. It also blesses us personally. It feels good to do what God made you to do. When you minister in a manner consistent with the personality God gave you, you experience fulfillment, satisfaction, and fruitfulness.
SHAPE: EMPLOYING YOUR EXPERIENCES
You have been shaped by your experiences in life, most of which were beyond your control. God allowed them for his purpose of molding you.11 In determining your shape for serving God, you should examine at least six kinds of experiences from your past:
Family experiences: What did you learn growing up in your family?
Educational experiences: What were your favorite subjects in school?
Vocational experiences: What jobs have you been most effective in and enjoyed most?
Spiritual experiences: What have been your most meaningful times with God?
Ministry experiences: How have you served God in the past?
Painful experiences: What problems, hurts, thorns, and trials have you learned from?
It is this last category, painful experiences, that God uses the most to prepare you for ministry. God never wastes a hurt! In fact, your greatest ministry will most likely come out of your greatest hurt. Who could better minister to the parents of a Down syndrome child than another couple who have a child afflicted in the same way? Who could better help an alcoholic recover than someone who fought that demon and found freedom? Who could better comfort a wife whose husband has left her for an affair than a woman who went through that agony herself?
God intentionally allows you to go through painful experiences to equip you for ministry to others. The Bible says, “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”12
If you really desire to be used by God, you must understand a powerful truth: The very experiences that you have resented or regretted most in life—the ones you’ve wanted to hide and forget—are the experiences God wants to use to help others. They are your ministry!
For God to use your painful experiences, you must be willing to share them.
For God to use your painful experiences, you must be willing to share them. You have to stop covering them up, and you must honestly admit your faults, failures, and fears. Doing this will probably be your most effective ministry. People are always more encouraged when we share how God’s grace helped us in weakness than when we brag about our strengths.
Paul understood this truth, so he was honest about his bouts with depression. He admitted, “I think you ought to know, dear brothers, about the hard time we went through in Asia. We were really crushed and overwhelmed, and feared we would never live through it. We felt we were doomed to die and saw how powerless we were to help ourselves; but that was good, for then we put everything into the hands of God, who alone could save us, for he can even raise the dead. And he did help us and saved us from a terrible death; yes, and we expect him to do it again and again.”13
If Paul had kept his experience of doubt and depression a secret, millions of people would never have benefited from it. Only shared experiences can help others. Aldous Huxley said, “Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you.” What will you do with what you’ve been through? Don’t waste your pain; use it to help others.
As we’ve looked at these five ways God has shaped you for service, I hope you have a deeper appreciation for God’s sovereignty and a clearer idea of how he has prepared you for the purpose of serving him. Using your shape is the secret of both fruitfulness and fulfillment in ministry.14 You will be most effective when you use your spiritual gifts and abilities in the area of your heart’s desire, and in a way that best expresses your personality and experiences. The better the fit, the more successful you will be.
DAY THIRTY-ONE
THINKING ABOUT MY PURPOSE
Point to Ponder: Nobody else can be me.
Verse to Remember: “God has given each of you some special abilities; be sure to use them to help each other, passing on to others God’s many kinds of blessings.”
1 Peter 4:10 (LB)
Question to Consider: What God-given ability or personal experience can I offer to my church?
32
Using What God Gave You
Since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be.
Romans 12:5 (Msg)
What you are is God’s gift to you; what you do with yourself is your gift to God.