Category: Gifts and Talents

Reflecting at Christmas

This is by far the busiest times of the year and it’s not because of all the shopping. Actually, according to Shopify, November is the busiest commercial month of the year. I think it’s all the end of year rush, last-minute work targets and personal goals we want to achieve all between now and the 31st 23:59 which gets us all worked up. And on top of all that we want to enjoy the festivities and rest. We will soon discover that we cannot rest if we don’t eliminate the stressors in our way. At this time though I would say that one of the most important and beneficial things you can do for yourself is to spend time in reflection. When I’m reflecting or journaling it is in these moments when I’m most aware of what God has been teaching me through the day or the year. We need to intentionally create moments where we have epiphanies based on what is happening. Significant changes do not happen with the turn of a calendar it happens when we allow our minds to receive and engage with what is happening in our environments. We are praying for God to change our stories in the new year or decade, but we must ask ourselves what God has been engraving on the tables of our hearts over the last year or even decade that we haven’t paid attention to.

Beyond the feelings and the goosebumps, we might get when we encounter God, there are notable changes that take place in less spectacular ways inside of us. Being a lot more reflective, has help me understand that I ought to look for the mundane. Looking for God in the silence and seemingly insignificant is how Elijah got his life back as he stood on the mountain of God at the brink of depression.

I’m thinking about my life and things I want to focus on improving and things that I should keep and be more consistent with. Reflectively, I can say that I have grown over the last year. One of the key areas I have experienced growth and change in is how I think about giving and receiving love. It’s important to regularly reflect on how we relate with people and things.

Earlier in the year I had a conversation with someone that helped bring the thought process to mind and I can say that on reflecting on my understanding of extending love and hearing what the other person had to say, I found myself thinking that maybe I didn’t quite have a full understanding of what love – the God kind of Love – is. Maybe my limited understanding of how vast God’s love is keeping me from receiving all the wonderful gifts of God’s awesome love. I’ve begun thinking of love in a different way which has led to changes in how I practice love. Nothing drastic or dramatic, but significant enough for me to desire and chase after more of God’s kind of love in my heart. It is the kind of love that chases you and woos you regardless of how you are or what you’ve done. That love, loves you just because and nothing you could do could make it grow or diminish. Can I be that way towards myself and the people in my life? Can I be more loving regardless of what if?

At this point, I can say that any work that you catch me doing is related to reflecting and checking that the plans I make for the coming year are in line with the work that He has already begun in me. After all, what good is a perfect gift if I don’t take out the time to enjoy and use it?

Christmas blessings!

Embracing the Call

Humility, Servant-hood and Becoming

Let’s not use our calling as an opportunity to be proud or to carry ourselves with greater importance than we should. When we think about our calling and our assignment we should do so with humility remembering that God called out to us because we were far away. He called us because without his calling we wouldn’t know that we had to step into his plan and purpose. God’s calling was to realign us to our destiny and our perfect place in him, which is first to save our relationship with him and in so doing our salvation. 

A married man might call his wife frequently when they are not together to check on her with the intention to boost their relationship and in doing so is saving their marriage. It would be foolish for the wife to go around boasting that her husband gave her a call. Whilst she is understandably touched and excited when her husband calls, it is totally unnecessary for her to announce his call. 
I think in a similar manner we should cherish and accept the call of God with all humility.

Secondly, a call to fulfil an assignment is a privilege, because if we really look at ourselves we are not worthy. It is God that calls us and makes us worthy, not by our own righteousness or well doing but by his grace. We don’t earn it or work for it, it is just given to us because God is good.

Let us never fall into the trap of thinking that the goodness we experience has anything to do with the fact that we are so good. In fact, I’ll say that we are not always good. We are too selfish to be completely always good. We are still learning to be more like God, which is part of the reason why he gives us assignments.

Assignments are designed to:
Break you, rebuild you, prune you, stretch you, mould you, shape you better you and touch lives through you.

Can you see that the bulk of the work is on you and not through you? That’s because we are not perfect vessels. Why might a parent allow their five year old child to be with them in the kitchen? Surely, they can work faster, more effectively without the distraction of the child.
It is because being in the kitchen, teaches the child how to behave in the kitchen environment encourages them to help out, instils an attitude of care and partnership, develops their interest, teaches them how to cook, keeps them busy, builds a bond between them and the parents and enables the parent to keep an eye on them.
All these things can be likened to how God calls us into his work.

49 And He said to them, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?” Luke 2:49

Jesus knew exactly why he was called and he spent his early years, sitting in the temple, “listening” and “asking questions” (verse 46). It’s not enough to know that you are called and what it is you are called to do but why God has called you. It is a deeper understanding of the why that will keep your head bowed in humility when you reach the hills and will strengthen your arms for the enduring embrace of your call in God.


I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, 3 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Ephesians 4:1-3