The Purpose Driven Life(74)
Danish proverb
God deserves your best.
He shaped you for a purpose, and he expects you to make the most of what you have been given. He doesn’t want you to worry about or covet abilities you don’t have. Instead he wants you to focus on talents he has given you to use.
When you attempt to serve God in ways you’re not shaped to serve, it feels like forcing a square peg into a round hole. It’s frustrating and produces limited results. It also wastes your time, your talent, and your energy. The best use of your life is to serve God out of your shape. To do this you must discover your shape, learn to accept and enjoy it, and then develop it to its fullest potential.
DISCOVER YOUR SHAPE
The Bible says, “Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to find out and do whatever the Lord wants you to.”1 Don’t let another day go by. Start finding out and clarifying what God intends for you to be and do.
Begin by assessing your gifts and abilities. Take a long, honest look at what you are good at and what you’re not good at. Paul advised, “Try to have a sane estimate of your capabilities.”2 Make a list. Ask other people for their candid opinion. Tell them you’re searching for the truth, not fishing for a compliment. Spiritual gifts and natural abilities are always confirmed by others. If you think you are gifted to be a teacher or a singer and no one else agrees, guess what? If you want to know if you have the gift of leadership, just look over your shoulder! If no one is following you, you’re not a leader.
Ask questions like these: Where have I seen fruit in my life that other people confirmed? Where have I already been successful? Spiritual gift tests and ability inventories can have some value, but they are limited in their usefulness.
In the first place, they are standardized, so they don’t take into account your uniqueness. Second, there are no definitions of the spiritual gifts given in the Bible, so any definitions are arbitrary and usually represent a denominational bias. Another problem is that the more mature you become, the more likely you are to manifest the characteristics of a number of the gifts. You may be serving or teaching or giving generously out of maturity rather than because it is your spiritual gift.
The best way to discover your gifts and abilities is to experiment with different areas of service. I could have taken a hundred gift and ability tests as a young man and would have never discovered that I was gifted at teaching because I had never done it! It was only after I began accepting opportunities to speak that I saw the results, received confirmation from others, and realized, “God has gifted me to do this!”
You will never know what you’re good at until you try.
Many books get the discovery process backwards. They say, “Discover your spiritual gift and then you’ll know what ministry you’re supposed to have.” It actually works the exact opposite way. Just start serving, experimenting with different ministries, and then you’ll discover your gifts. Until you’re actually involved in serving, you’re not going to know what you’re good at.
You have dozens of hidden abilities and gifts you don’t know you’ve got because you’ve never tried them out. So I encourage you to try doing some things you’ve never done before. No matter how old you are, I urge you to never stop experimenting. I have met many people who discovered hidden talents in their seventies and eighties. I know a woman in her nineties who runs and wins 10K races and didn’t discover that she enjoyed running until she was seventy-eight!
Don’t try to figure out your gifts before volunteering to serve somewhere. Just start serving. You discover your gifts by getting involved in ministry. Try teaching or leading or organizing or playing an instrument or working with teenagers. You will never know what you’re good at until you try. When it doesn’t work out, call it an “experiment,” not a failure. You will eventually learn what you’re good at.
Consider your heart and your personality. Paul advised, “Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.”3 Again, it helps to get feedback from those who know you best. Ask yourself questions: What do I really enjoy doing most? When do I feel the most fully alive? What am I doing when I lose track of time? Do I like routine or variety? Do I prefer serving with a team or by myself? Am I more introverted or extroverted? Am I more a thinker or a feeler? Which do I enjoy more—competing or cooperating?
Examine your experiences and extract the lessons you have learned. Review your life and think about how it has shaped you. Moses told the Israelites, “Remember today what you have learned about the LORD through your experiences with him.”4 Forgotten experiences are worthless; that’s a good reason to keep a spiritual journal. Paul worried that the believers in Galatia would waste the pain they had been through. He said, “Were all your experiences wasted? I hope not!”5