|
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
|
|