I’ve wrestled with my strongest spiritual gift for quite some time — apostleship.
I usually like to contemplate the ways I can use my gifts that are more obvious to me. I am gifted creatively, so I like to play music. God hit me in a lightning bolt moment in the shower one day when I was about twenty years old — play music for me, and all will be okay. So I’ve clung to that one, even when part of me tells myself that I’m too old and too out of touch with what’s going on with music these days.
Or it’s just simpler for me to dive into my gift of leadership — that one plays out quite well in business. I can lead people through the contextual framework of a business toward common goals and objectives — if we’re on the mission together, things are much easier for leadership because it’s the mission, not me, that’s doing the heavy lifting.
With apostleship, I’ve just more recently come back around to that one more. As I have more perspective, and a dominantly gray beard, I can now finally start to see the threads of apostleship throughout my life, and especially with my professional career.
I absolutely love to start things — I love the creative process to get things going, and especially if there is complexity to the strategy and decisions to be made — sprinkle in some intensive problem solving and things get even better. But is entrepreneurship a part of being an apostle? Perhaps. I think the better disciple I become, the more effective of an apostle I might actually be — after all, it’s not me, it’s The Creator working in me and through me.
So as I come toward a new season in my vocation, I am coming to the realization that perhaps the best way to use our spiritual gifts is to actually give them away — mind boggling, I know. It’s dead simple and I think that’s the way Our Creator wants us to think about it.
For me, that’s starting things for people I love, and then, what The Source has created in us and through us is a gift back to them — I hope they can enjoy it for years and seasons to come.
What have you been given and how can you give it away? Every blessing can multiply new blessings upon blessings. We are meant to turn gifts over exponentially to the world around us, especially the people we know and love.
Start a list of gifts you can give that absolutely cannot be repaid — those are probably an indicator that they’re inspired by The Creator.
Be bold with your gifts — know they will be used for good.
