We just started a new study at our church that is designed to help people identify their GOD given gifts and personality flavors so we can really identify where they will thrive best in the work of the church. Me, I have a pretty good idea who I am and how GOD has been using me, but I am still excited to go through this study. So, I admit, I peeked ahead.
I have read and been taught about GOD's gifts before, but I never saw them all organized into three groups before - listening/hearing gifts, speaking gifts, and doing gifts. Being in a Pentecostal church, I often see the listening and speaking gifts in use and see how powerfully they touch the lives of the ones who use these gifts and the ones who they are used for. But I haven't often seen the doing gifts in church - and I started wondering why this should be so. Are we just afraid? Do we think GOD can't do things like that anymore?
I think I am comfortable with the listening and speaking gifts because I'm a verbal person anyway. We all use words every day, we use our ears to hear every day, so these gifts are so natural to us we don't really think twice about GOD using us and gifting us in these ways. But to do miracles, to see healings happen, that is so much more involved than simple communication. And I think it's a little scarier to even try because if there isn't an actual something that happens, then we consider it a failure.
I've come to a conclusion about that - something can only happen if we walk out on that limb and at least try. If GOD gives me a word of knowledge (a hearing gift) to speak prophetically to someone (a speaking gift), then I do it. I hear and I speak and that is the extent of my obedience. If the person I am speaking to doesn't receive the words and there is no fruit from the transfer of communication, there is no blame on me - I did what I needed to do for GOD. So if I think GOD wants me to pray so someone can be healed, the same thing applies. My obedience is to pray in all the faith I have for that healing. But because there is a partnership between me and the person I am praying for, the results of that prayer are not completely on me. Whether or not the healing occurs is beside the point. I think the point of the gift of healing is simply knowing that GOD can do it and wants to do it and praying with confidence that HE will do it. The results, as with any gift, are up to HIM. All I can do is be faithful to pray.
So I guess I need to get doing.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Another Lesson My Kids Taught
Man, I miss my kids!
They have been vacationing with my parents for almost three weeks and the quiet is almost as nerve-wracking now as their bickering was before they left. Strange how that happens.
I am sure they are having too much fun to really miss me. Since my parents are both retired, they are free to play at the park, go to the beach, paint ceramics, teach crochet, give tennis lessons, take frequent trips to the library, go to the movies, take walks by the river (though too cold to swim), and a multitude of other things active grandparents do whenever they want to do it.
But when it's important, my kids call me. My daughter had a mini-crisis during her visit. A perfectly normal growing up milemarker, but something that can be really scary or unsettling for the first time, picked that visit to begin. And she refused to talk to anyone else. Not her sister, not her loving Pama, only her mom would do. My husband and I were able to talk and pray her through it and she is once again the happy young woman who enjoys painting her nails and pestering her siblings. But it made clear one more facet of faith.
See, I often feel totally alone when going through something I see as crisis. Sometimes (okay, honestly, it's most of the time) I will isolate myself in troubling times, like my daughter closed herself away from everyone around her. I think it's part of our nature to hide any weaknesses. But when the only tiny teardrop of faith I can muster is thrown out as a prayer, even if it's only to ask GOD to get other people to pray for me 'cause I can't find the faith, strength, or words, HE answers. HE bolsters. HE encourages and gives courage. HE lends HIS strength. And HE talks me through it, HIS peace encircling everything. Even if I can't feel HIM act or answer, the faith found to even speak the words multiplies and grows. Speaking in faith, even if it's a desperate cry, increases faith, because you have to believe that Someone is listening. And if there's Someone on the other end listening, then you're never as alone as you think.
One night in tears, I prayed that GOD would get people to pray for me. I didn't have the words, and I was crying too hard to speak much between the sobs. The next day one of the prayer warrior ladies from our church asked how I was doing. I knew she must have been led to pray for me. GOD is faithful. In every answer, for every prayer, HE hears and answers. Even if the prayer is only a thought between tears.
They have been vacationing with my parents for almost three weeks and the quiet is almost as nerve-wracking now as their bickering was before they left. Strange how that happens.
I am sure they are having too much fun to really miss me. Since my parents are both retired, they are free to play at the park, go to the beach, paint ceramics, teach crochet, give tennis lessons, take frequent trips to the library, go to the movies, take walks by the river (though too cold to swim), and a multitude of other things active grandparents do whenever they want to do it.
But when it's important, my kids call me. My daughter had a mini-crisis during her visit. A perfectly normal growing up milemarker, but something that can be really scary or unsettling for the first time, picked that visit to begin. And she refused to talk to anyone else. Not her sister, not her loving Pama, only her mom would do. My husband and I were able to talk and pray her through it and she is once again the happy young woman who enjoys painting her nails and pestering her siblings. But it made clear one more facet of faith.
See, I often feel totally alone when going through something I see as crisis. Sometimes (okay, honestly, it's most of the time) I will isolate myself in troubling times, like my daughter closed herself away from everyone around her. I think it's part of our nature to hide any weaknesses. But when the only tiny teardrop of faith I can muster is thrown out as a prayer, even if it's only to ask GOD to get other people to pray for me 'cause I can't find the faith, strength, or words, HE answers. HE bolsters. HE encourages and gives courage. HE lends HIS strength. And HE talks me through it, HIS peace encircling everything. Even if I can't feel HIM act or answer, the faith found to even speak the words multiplies and grows. Speaking in faith, even if it's a desperate cry, increases faith, because you have to believe that Someone is listening. And if there's Someone on the other end listening, then you're never as alone as you think.
One night in tears, I prayed that GOD would get people to pray for me. I didn't have the words, and I was crying too hard to speak much between the sobs. The next day one of the prayer warrior ladies from our church asked how I was doing. I knew she must have been led to pray for me. GOD is faithful. In every answer, for every prayer, HE hears and answers. Even if the prayer is only a thought between tears.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
