ENGAGING OUR GIFTS

 

In our journey of maximizing our gifts to its highest potential, one of the key concepts that should be discussed is how to engage our various gifts, because it is only by use, we get to grow our gifts beyond what was initially deposited in us.

Engaging is a verb, meaning it is an action word, it involves deliberate effort, consciousness, and active participation. It is not something that can be done half-hearted or by chance.

Human beings can be likened to a piece of land set apart for the purpose of gardening, where different seeds can be planted which in turn leads to a harvest of different types of fruits depending on the seed planted. But until the seed is planted by the farmer, watered and is in the right type of conditions, it won't grow. So much so as humans, God is the planter, he waters with his grace, but we are the soil, and the soil determines if the conditions is the conditions is favorable for germination or not. It is funny how we never see the processes the seed is going through while still in the soil but cannot deny that work is being done when the seed starts to germinate and grows to the point of seed production.

As humans we are soils that can host a seed, but we can only be called gardens when there have been evidence of seed germination occurring in us, so the question is what can I do to ensure my seed grows? how do I engage my gifts to the point of growth? Firstly,

·         GOING BACK TO THE BEGINNING, OUR STARTING POINT

In the beginning, God said, let us make man in our image, hence he is our life source and so is every gift we find in ourselves. The very first process to engaging our gift is by going back to GOD, fixing our relationship with him, inquire what he has put in us and how do we maximize our gifts. Just like when a new gadget or product is bought, the manufacturer makes available a piece of note in the package on how it is to be used, its operating environment, what is considered hazardous to the products etc., so does man, we have our own instruction manual because the bible say “lo I come in the volume of a book” Hebrews 10 vs 7. There is a book that tells how your gifts should be operated and this book can be found only with God. A wise man once said that if the purpose of a product is not known, abuse is eminent, as men, our main purpose is to bring glory to God, meaning our lives and everything found in it should bring glory to God, but if otherwise is the case, we are abusing ourselves, hence going back to God is the first step to identifying this problem and the steps on how to become a vessel from which honor goes to God.

·         KNOWING WHO YOU ARE

This involves fixing your relationship with yourself, some of us don’t even spend time with ourselves, we don’t know who we are, our emotional strengths, hobbies, personality traits, weakness etc., we know absolutely nothing about ourselves because we have not spent time with ourselves, in order to understand yourself better. We are either too busy working on other things or even comparing ourselves with others and trying to emulate their own traits into our lives while there is a whole existence in you waiting to be discovered, if only you put in the time to actually study you. How often do you have your quiet time, not just for prayer and word meditations, your quiet time can also be a time for self-mediations, take an appraisal of yourself for the day, trust the holy spirit to show you loop holes in your characters that was exhibited during the course of the day, take corrections and implement them, that how you develop personally, it can also be a time to take notes of how much you are engaging your talents etc. 

·         SEEING BEYOND YOU

AT the age of 6, you realized that you loved writing, hence you tagged it your hobby, now 10 to 20 years down the line, you are stilling insisting that your writing abilities are just hobbies, you have not been able to see beyond you. People lives are imparted so much by what they see, including reading, so thousands of writers are out there engaging their gifts and influencing their worlds through their thoughts that has been written down, but you are still in the comfort of your small world thinking writing is just a hobby. You have not come to the realization that your gift is not just a cup of water for you to quench your thirst, but it can become a river from which the world can drink from. Anything you have labeled up until this point of your life as a hobby is a seed, go on your personal research journey and find out how many others have these hobbies with you and see how far they have grown theirs too and know that you too can grow yours to that point and beyond because your gifts are not meant for you alone.

·         COUNTING THE COSTS [LUKE 14 VS 28]

This scripture says, “suppose one of you wants to build a tower, won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough to complete it”. This verse talks on taking appraisal of where you are, where you want to be at next, what is needed to get to that point, and do I have what it takes to get me to that point. This is where you discover that knowing having a nice voice is good but development is necessary, so the thoughts of the need to enroll in a music school should come up at this point, the thought of the importance to adjust your schedule to include a specific amount of time set apart for just practicing your skills to the point of excellence, the need to surround yourself with good companions and people with like minds etc. the need for various steps and requirement starts to take shape your mind, because building your life is a project and there are costs attached to achieving that goal.

·         PAYING THE PRICE OF DISCIPLINE AND DILIGENCE

According to the oxford dictionary, diligence is careful and persistent work or effort. While discipline is the ability to keep applying diligence in anything, irrespective of your results, setbacks etc. Now, just like engaging is an action word, so is diligence and discipline which means it cannot be done without your consciousness. So as an upcoming teacher, after counting the cost of being an excellent teacher, discipline and diligence is what keeps you to actively still keep to the steps and processes needed to grow your gifts, so you give the necessary time to reading, study, research, listening to people that has gone ahead of you. In the process of doing all of these, you will find out that it is not necessarily the best things to do in the context of fun, but it must be done, so you keep at it for as longs it is needed to keep maximizing your potentials.

I pray for grace for all of us to keep engaging our God given gifts in Jesus Name.