Whenever we talk about spiritual gifts, we say they are
important, and someone else starts to feel bad because they
don't know what their spiritual gift is. So let us try a
different approach.
To everyone
We are taught that the Holy Spirit distributes His gifts to
everyone. So, whoever you are, if you are a
Christian, you have received one or more spiritual
gifts. But we are not told you will always know what
that gift is.
Experience suggests that many people have great difficulty in
recognising the gifts they have been given. This is
sometimes due to false humility, but very often, it is a very
honest problem.
The trouble is that we look at people doing things we can't do,
and think how wonderfully they have been gifted. We
look at what we can do, and know it is easy, so there is
obviously no spiritual gift at work. We don't
appreciate that it is only easy to us because we have
been gifted in some way, and people look at us with wonder at
the things we can do easily.
Don't worry too much about whether a gift is 'natural' or
'supernatural'. They all come from God, and they are all used in
His Kingdom.
God gives gifts to His children because there is a job He
wants to do through us. You might have the gift of healing one
day, and the gift of hospitality the next. It is nothing to do
with you, really - it is because you are meeting a sick person
one day, and a lonely stranger the next. Please don't think "I
can't do this - it's not my gift": if God wants to use you, it
is your gift.
Ministries are a bit like gifts that have stuck. A person who
is constantly exercising the gift of hospitality can be
described as having the ministry of hospitality. It is what they
do, what they are known for. And the person with a minsitry
probably practices and works hard at the way they use the gift.
You may receive the gift of a piano, and from day one you can
make a cheerful noise with it. But if you want to become a
pianist, that will take hard work and perseverance as well as
the gift. It is the same with spiritual gifts: God gives them,
but we still have a part to play.
Whose gifts?
We say they are the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and then behave
as though they belonged to us.
The Steps
Look
Watch what God is doing - through His people, and - sometimes -
through folk who do not know Him.
Pray
Pray about what you see and what you read in the Bible. Seek
to understand not only what He does, but why. Allow God to stir
you to respond - to take some part yourself in seeing His will
being done on Earth.
Do
You have seen something of God's activity; you have prayed and
understand something of what He wants to do; now do
something about it!
God only grants us revelation so that we can
act on it.
In general, acting on revelation takes one (or more!) of three
forms.
He sometimes reveals His will to us so that we can pray His
will into being.
He sometimes reveals His will so that we can help someone
else bring it about.
The other reason is that He reveals His will to us so that
we will personally work to achieve that goal.