Spiritual gifts -are you using yours to its full potential?

Never send a 14-year-old boy to load the dishwasher.  I know he needs to learn this chore, but when I open the door after he has filled it I just shake my head. 

Then I get to work, rearranging bowls and silverware and cups.  Packing it in.  With pregnancy hormones comes a special gift for moms –the ability to get 10 times more in a dishwasher than any other human on the planet is capable of doing. 

Well, I’m here to tell you that God can pack it in.  To each one who chooses to follow him he gives a spiritual gift.  Something that will help build up his church, show off who he is, encourage people, help people…  You know what I mean?   

But often followers of God think they got skipped in the gifts department or think their gift is puny and nothin’.  Listen, that’s the same perspective a teenage boy has when he opens the dishwasher. 

I do wonder if God looks at us, sighs, and says, Really?  You think that’s all you can do? 

Potential –that’s what moms see when standing in front of an open dishwasher.  That’s what God sees when standing in front of one of his children.  Jesus came right out and said it, “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit.”  (John 15:8  NIV)   

God crams it in there.  Ridiculously more than you think you can do.  Ridiculously greater impact than you imagine you can have. 

What spiritual gift do you have?  Have you even begun to tap the potential God sees in you?   

Dare ya to do this –get out a notebook and write down what it would be like if your gift were used HUGE, and imagine God looking over your shoulder saying, Ah, now you’re gettin’ it.  That’s more like it.