Living Our Giftedness

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Living our giftedness is all God wants us to do, in my opinion. It's so easy to get caught up in all the things that we could do or that people ask you to do for the church and God. Knowing who you are, recognizing your gifts and having them confirmed, praying about exactly what God wants you to do and using your time and abilities to do those things, is how it should work. The exciting thing is is that what God calls you to do, goes hand in hand with where your passion lies.

Sometimes I agree to do something because I am asked and honestly, a little flattered. Sometimes I do things because I am asked and there isn't anyone else to do them. Then I struggle with - well does God want me to do this or just someone else? I think I'm learning s-l-o-w-l-y. So sometimes I quit something because I go whoa...this isn't for me. Or I've taken on too much and then have to go back and look at my priorities...again. What is awesome, though, is when God shows you what you should be doing. That happened to me last night at our first 'youth night' at church. I had been thinking about this for quite awhile and when I had a young guy visit my class recently, at church, and say he wanted to join the youth group, I had a feeling that this was something I should be doing. And it went pretty great. We have lots of ideas for meeting the spiritual needs of the kids, as well as the need to socialize, belong and have fun. So I am excited!!!

Prayer-meeting continues to give me a headache...not really. But I don't have the comfortable excitement that I do with the youth. I'm not at all sure I should give up on that, though, because to tell you the truth, I hate this fear of speaking and praying and if this fear could go away, it would be HUGE for me. I am doing things today that not too long ago, I couldn't. So I am moving in the right direction.

God is funny, cool and so understanding. He didn't expect me to move out of my fear when I wasn't capable. I have been taking baby steps for a long time. Now the steps are getting bigger, but there's still things I don't want to do. And I fear, it'll all come around sometime...some dreadful day!!!! But He just wants to free me to be who I am supposed to be, whoever that is! One thing I know is that I want to be ready to pray for and with anyone that has a need. I want to be able to comfortably and naturally have that ability. Prayer has really been a private thing for me. I spend much time actually writing in a prayer-journal - letters to God. I am addicted to that.

What are some of the things God is calling you to? And how are you answering Him? What are your passions? Do you have hard struggles? Things to overcome? Please share - I'd love to hear about you.

Oh, yeah...this year's word was step. And it's turning out to be a "step out of the boat, peter" kind of step!!!

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