Divine Talent

On an episode of Jeopardy last week, there was a female contestant who was boasting of a talent she had.  When it was her turn for Alex to introduce her to the audience, the bit of information about herself that she disclosed was the fact that she could write forward and backward at the same time.  She explained that she could write forward with one hand and backward with the other simultaneously.  When she finished sharing with the audience, glaring a boastful smile the entire time, she just stood there with the biggest smile on her face, so proud of herself and soaking in the audience's applause.  A couple of days later on one of my runs, God reminded me of that moment and I thought how can she be proud of something like that?  She didn't earn that talent, nor did she create it; she was born with it.  God gave it to her.  And she was boasting like she had something to do with it.  Not once did she give glory to God for being born that way.

We all have talents and we were hand-crafted by God with specific talents, skills, and abilities, so that we can bring glory to His Name.  Ephesians 2:10 states that "we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  We are not created to bring ourselves glory.  I, like all of mankind, was born with a selfish streak, although I think  "streak" is an understatement.  God has been working on my pride for a long time; I am just thankful He hasn't given up on me.  Consequently, I have to be careful in my own life about boasting about things I had nothing to do with.  We, as Christians, were given talents, skills, and abilities to bring glory to God.  Are we doing that?  How are you using your gifts to spread the gospel and Jesus's Name?