UNREALIZED GIFT



     There once was a man who lived meekly and quietly before God. He lived an ordinary life not noticed by many people in the town. His circle of acquaintances was his wife and a few friends because he was a quiet type of person not calling much attention to himself. He had a meager occupation, nothing spectacular, but it met his and his wife’s needs so he continued in it . In his walk with God he had these deep feelings down inside and he entertained himself by putting them on canvas. He spent a lot of his spare time painting these things he felt down inside of himself. He was happiest when he painted and his wife and a few close friends said his paintings were quite good. He knew his wife and his friends were always kind to him and attributed their complements of his paintings as kindness again not thinking much about his paintings other than something that he felt good while he was doing them. When he would get done with them he would put them in a closet and there they would stay. He would not look at his paintings once they were done other than sometimes when he was putting a new one in the closet he would notice a previous one, pull it out, look at it, get a good feeling about how it made him feel when he painted it and then put it back in the closet. Sometimes when he was painting he would talk to God silently and they would discuss the painting as he worked and it progressed. He felt that sometimes some of his paintings reflected his relationship with God in a special way. Yet he never did anything with his paintings but put them in the closet because he knew there were many great painters in the world and his were no better than those common paintings being done by the art students down in the park as they were taught by their teacher. He knew he had never studied art or been taught by some of the great teachers so he continued to put his paintings in the closet knowing they couldn’t be of any value to anyone but himself. His life traveled on and by now he had lost his wife to a serious disease and having no children he was left alone. He continued at his meager occupation which earn him enough to live on and he continued painting. By now he had closet after closet full of the paintings he had done in his life and one day he also died.
     The officials of the town came to close his estate and discovered all the closets in the house full of these paintings. Since none of the officials knew anything about art they call for the curator of the large art museum in one of the cities not too far away. When the curator seen the paintings he called for an art expert and some of the clergy of the large churches in the city he was from. When they arrived he took them into the house and for some time they examined all the paintings. At the end of a couple days the curator with the art expert and the clergy came to the officials and gave their report. They said that in the collection of this man’s paintings there were scenes of natural setting in the world, there were scenes of things from the bible, and there were scenes of things which they could have never imagined and yet when they looked at them they were touched deeply inside by something that left peace and happiness. They declared that every painting that they had found in the closets were definitely masterpieces and some being the greatest ever seen.
     This man had lived his whole life with a meager occupation earning enough to survive on and never being much notice by those in his town. He knew of his relationship with his God but he never realized the gift of being able to put such beautiful things on canvas that his God had planted in him. This man’s value to the world was never known until after he had died. All those years he lived with masterpieces in the closet and never knew what he had been given by God.

The End



How many times has God given gifts to people in His church for ministry to the body of Christ, which is us, and were never used? How many of us are not using those gifts God has given us because even though it feels very natural to us we don't beleve it could be of much use to anyone else so we keep it to ourselves. We need to pray and to seek and to ask God to show us how He wants to use us in the body of Christ. We need to ask if He has given us a gift He intended to bless the body of Christ with. If we have recieved a gift that we are not using in the body of Christ then they are missing a blessing God intended for them to have. Don't be like the man in the story who hid the masterpieces in the closet because he thought they were not good enough. Don't die before you find out the gift God may have given you - pray - findout - and use it to bless the body of Christ.


Robert L Doudna 2004