Gifting vs Character

I’ve been thinking recently about gifting. It seems to me that the world’s mindset is obsessed with talent. TV is full of dance competitions and singing competitions, and our whole education system is geared towards training skills and abilities to make people more employable. With all this highly developed talent, you’d think we’d be happy – but the opposite is true! Celebrity magazines are full of heartbreak story after heartbreak story, and the students in our schools and universities are lost in sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. In the city, investment bankers and lawyers earn more money in a week with their talent than most people make in a year, but their hours are so long they’ve no time to enjoy it.

So what’s the answer? Gifts and talents are great. They’re God-given, and we have a responsibility to develop them. The problem is when we try to use our gifts to make us feel more significant. It’s God’s intention to detach your gifts and abilities from insecurities, a need to please, and a spirit of fear – and reattach them to his love. That takes a re-jigging of the way we think.

Instead of being obsessed with being more gifted, it is much more fruitful to be concerned with being a better person. If we can add the strength of character to the strength of gifting we’ll see our lives soar!