Giving our Gifts

 Good morning!  A little disclaimer:  I have to get my things together to go to work in just 25 minutes, so that's my time limit to write this little musing.  So I may not do much editing this time.  Let's just see how it goes (24 minutes left . . .)

I try to do a little Bible reading every day.  Depending on how I sleep the night before, snoozing a couple more times may be a better way to prepare myself for the day (complete honesty here), so sometimes it's in the evening, and some days I just don't get to it.  I read a little devotional and then take the passage of scripture and read it several times, in several versions, to help the message sink in.  When I did yesterday's reading, it stuck out to me as an idea that would be good for anyone to espouse, not only those of us who try to follow the teachings of the Bible.  It's from the first letter of the apostle Peter:  "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others . . ." (4:10, NIV).  Nothing we have is ours.  We didn't make anything we have, in material possessions or talents or time.  I believe all of that came from God, but even if I didn't, I can see that nothing I have originated with me.  The things I own are because my employer traded me money for time and I used that money to buy those things.  The things I'm good at and enjoy doing would never have come about without patient teachers imparting their wisdom and knowledge to help me learn them.  I didn't create anything I have or anything I am.

That Bible verse goes on to say that we should use these gifts "as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."  Again, I don't have to believe that extending grace to fellow humans is a religious thing in order to use what I've been given in the service of others.  We should all be faithful stewards of what we have because it makes the world a better place.

What if (stay with me--I have nine more minutes) we would all take inventory of what we have--things, talents, skills, interests, passions, time, social media accounts, blogs, other public forums--and think of how we could use those resources in service of the betterment of the world?  What can I give to the world today that would make someone else's life better?  It doesn't have to be a big thing.  It could be the extra coat in your closet that may mean the difference between life and death for someone who lives on the street.  It could be kind words that talk someone down off a ledge, literally or figuratively.  What about using creativity to bring light in the darkness?  Or a Facebook page to share positivity and encouragement?  Our society feels like it's on the verge of revolution.  Using our gifts to care for others IS revolutionary.  It could change the world.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"The Rest Is Still Unwritten"

I had an idea of what I was going to write for this week, but then I was listening to Spotify's Happy Mix while doing some cross stitching this morning.  The mix is very well-named, and includes Bill Withers' "Lovely Day," a few Meghan Trainor ditties (💖💖💖), Sara Bareilles' "Brave," and "Born this Way" by Lady Gaga.  As always, though, when "Unwritten" by Natasha Bedingfield came on, I had to stop everything and listen.  My list of uplifting songs is ever growing, but this one will always be in the top five.  As someone who has always had a creative bent, this song really speaks to me:  "Staring at the blank page before you/Open up the dirty window/Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find . . ."  Like Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4" (yep, that's what that song is about!) for the 21st century.  I don't know about you, but a blank book thrills me down to my toes--all that untouched paper, all ...
Read more

Bruce Almighty

How can a Jim-Carrey-being-Jim-Carrey film make me cry?  How can one film be so irreverent and yet so overtly spiritual at the same time?  This morning I was watching Bruce Almighty  again while doing a little stitching.  It's probably the fifth time I've seen the film, and I found myself, as always, being moved by Bruce's transformation, the treatment of fervent and honest prayer, and the question of "unanswered" prayer.  I'll issue a spoiler alert here, but since the film is 20 years old, if you haven't already seen it, you probably aren't going to.   Just a not-so-little overview:  Bruce is a television news reporter whose career is going nowhere.  He's stuck doing human interest stories he sees as beneath him, but longs to be promoted to news anchor when a current anchor retires.  His dissatisfaction with his job spills over into his personal life, which he shares with his ever-faithful girlfriend, Grace, a kindergarten teacher, and ...
Read more

Being Sabbath

I'm losing count of things I've heard or read about Sabbath in the last few years.  While Sabbath is far from a new concept, it seems the recent resurgence of talk about Sabbath has coincided with the rise of the minimalism movement.  Marie Kondo talks about ridding oneself of things that are not useful, or don't "spark joy."  Margareta Magnusson brought awareness to the practice of "Swedish Death Cleaning," or decluttering so that your heirs don't have so much to deal with upon your demise.  The Minimalists,  Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, operate from the thesis that the less stuff we have, the more meaning we can find in our lives.  This is a spiritual concept--the more stuff we keep for ourselves, the less we have to share with others, the greater our carbon footprint, the further we find ourselves from God/our spirituality (" it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kin...
Read more