Finding and Honing Your Spiritual Gifts

From time to time, I work with good folks with awesome spiritual gifts who just aren’t living up to their God-given potential. Usually they are either confused about what their gift is and aren’t doing anything, their doing something but are frustrated because their gift isn’t being used (properly), or they don’t feel like they are able to grow or hone their gift in their current situation.

 

To rephrase, they’re doing nothing for fear of doing the wrong thing, doing something that doesn’t align with their gift, or are not doing enough with their gift and can’t grow as a result.

 

This is what I talk to those folks about:

 

What are Spiritual Gifts?

 

First, I explain what spiritual gifts are and some examples of gifts I’ve seen.

Spiritual gifts are first and foremost talents or abilities bestowed by God to individuals for the benefit of the entire Church (global or universal church). That’s it.

In my experience, all spiritual gifts fall into one of two categories: physical or metaphysical.

Some people are gifted by God to either provide wisdom or insight into a situation or gifted to accomplish good work, tasks for the Kingdom. And I don’t believe God gifts you with just one thing, but it’s likely that you might have a primary gift that informs other gifts.

For instance, I know a man who is a gifted educator, obviously born and spiritually gifted to teach and impart wisdom to others. He has been given a brain that soaks up information, synthesizes ideas perfectly, and is able to articulate the new wisdom in a way that is easily digestible for students.

What a gift!

So his primary gift is that ability to synthesize information for teaching, but a secondary gift of his is for speaking. He is as gifted at articulating his thought patterns as he is at thinking.

Now I know what some of you are thinking, some of that is learned behavior, right? So it’s not a gift, God didn’t GIVE him the ability to talk well, he just practiced really hard and got good at it on his own. And maybe you’d be right, but let me ask you this…

Do you think God’s gifts can be developed? Do you think that you can grow into or hone your gift? Do you think that God wants for you to be a person who develops over time? Are you a work in progress?

My personal belief is that God gifts us, and it’s our job to hone those gifts, to grow and develop into something awesome, and I’ll talk a little more about how to do that later.

 

But for now, let’s dive into how you can discover your spiritual gift.

 

How do you discover your spiritual gift?

 

The easiest way of finding out what your spiritual gift is comes from knowing what you’re good at.

I believe God puts desires in our minds for us to discover what our calling is. When you’re doing a task or studying a subject in school maybe, and it’s coming easier to you than it is for your peers, you might be close to your gift. When you are right in the center of God’s will for your life, it’s like a superpower!

Everything seems easy.

Tasks are accomplished without great effort. Opportunities just seem to fall in your lap, seems like you just can’t go wrong. Setbacks don’t seem like such a problem when you’re living into your calling!

Part of that is using your spiritual gift the way that it was intended for your life.

So, what are you good at? Is it talking understanding others? Maybe you’ve been gifted with empathy. Are you really good at finding patterns and like things tidy? Maybe you’ve been gifted with organization.

Just look for things that come naturally to you, and you’ll often find your gift.

The opposite is also true and can be just as helpful. I’m talking about looking at what is difficult for you and using that knowledge to understand your gift. Let’s say you really have a hard time figuring out peoples motivations for what they do and why they do it, you probably aren’t gifted with discernment.

Sometimes realizing what you’re not can shed light on what you are! If you can let go of this vain thought, like “I’m supposed to be a leader” when you aren’t very good at working with groups and people don’t generally follow you, you can put that thought away and really focus in on what your actual calling is.

 

As a side note, you’ll notice I’m talking a lot about calling in this conversation about spiritual gifts, and that’s not an accident. I believe that the abilities God has given you informs your calling.

 

How do you hone and develop spiritual gifts?

 

I would like to start this off by saying that you can grow in ability, but it’s going to be really difficult if you’re developing in a way that is counter to what God has gifted you. That’s why it’s so important to know your gift first, then hone it. Not the other way around, thinking you’ll grow a gift from nothing.

The simple answer is USE THE GIFT! Use it!

If you’ve been gifted with creativity, go paint, or write, or whatever! If you’ve been gifted in music, you can hear well and understand rhythm, pitch and harmony, join a choir, band or orchestra! Join a group! If you’ve been gifted with wisdom or insight, run for public office or student government! Whatever you do, do something that is going to force you to use your gift.

You ever heard the phrase “Use it or lose it”? Yeah. I talk a lot about practice and the idea that practice is the art of creating permanently learned behaviors. I’m usually talking about music practice, but I think it applies here, too. Either by under utilizing your gift or by trying to practice a gift that you don’t have, you are learning to be someone you’re not.

 

My dad told me a story about the time he had heart surgery, he almost 100% blockage in one of his arteries. The surgery happened, and the blockage was completely cleared, from almost 100 to 0 just like that! In the recovery room, the surgeon came by to talk to my father. My dad took the opportunity to thank him, to which he replied, “God did all the work, I’m just His instrument.” My dad looked him in the eyes and said “No, I don’t think so. Jesus saved my soul, YOU saved my life.”

Now why would this ordained minister, which my father is, this God-fearing man say something like that? It because of the reality, which is that God gives us the ability, but we ultimately have to do something with it! That surgeon was gifted with healing, and he put himself in a position where he was using his gifts to their fullest extent. You can be the same. You can do ordinary things in extraordinary ways, just like that surgeon.

 

You just must be able to take the time to realize your gift, and them work to make it something awesome!

 

I hope you find exponential growth in your near future as you live into the spiritual gift God has given you.

 

Go in peace.