BEING GIFTED BY GOD DOESN'T MEAN THE TASK IS EASY

I raise a question as to just how we are to perceive giftedness; others and our own.  The reason is that it seems to me that the overall church membership has slipped into a dismissal of challenges/tasks before us when we don't know how to approach such.  We say things like, Well, I'm just not gifted in that area.  At that comment, it seems that personal responsibility to participate is mistakenly dismissed; but with clear conscience.

First, allow me to acknowledge that one more time I don't have a complete grasp of the truth of this subject.  Know that I know that.  Yet, I do want to question our practice of convenient dismissal if we should be doing otherwise; as in growing and maturing.

I find in my work various areas that seem most natural to me today; almost as if God has handed such to me.  But, in the earlier days of my ministry, I couldn't do them at all.  At first I fumbled greatly in delivering sermons, teaching classes, studying with seekers; on the list goes.  Today, it is reversed for me at times in some areas...on some occasions.

What would have happened and where would I be in a serving role today if I had dismissed such opportunities because I clearly believed that I was not gifted?  To learn these and other dimensions of ministry took disciplined training which included the awful dreaded reality of repeated failure.  So, while I may not be gifted, I surely am able to carry on in some of these zones.

Being gifted by God doesn't mean that we only move about on earth where the subject and the task is a no-stress matter.  Carrying a cross is stressful.  We will ever be called into challenging zones which will mature us.  Truthfully, I agree with you that such awareness does take discernment for each of us would be capable in only a few areas; while possibly being in the way in others.  My challenge, though, is to refrain from dismissing tasks before us because we either don't like or don't want to learn how to make the approach.

All of us are called to go into all of the world....in some form.  All of us are called to learn to be compassionate people-persons.  All of us are called to reach, to serve, to pray, to study.  For some this will be most natural.  For others, not so much.

Either way, we are to accept the task before us rather than sitting on our excuses simply because we won't try to learn.  Being gifted by God doesn't necessarily mean that the task before us is easy.  The practice of sacrifice and suffering may be involved as well.