Dried Up Prune

Matthew 5:29 (NLT) "To those who use well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an abundance. But, from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away."

What a tremendous amount of pressure there is in that one verse of scripture. God has given each of us talents and gifts, whether it be singing, acting, the ability to pay attention to detail, a charasmatic personality, the ability to teach, always having a kind word to say to someone. God created each one of us uniquely. He created us for His purpose. He entrusted to each of us gifts and talents for the purpose of furthering His kingdom. It is our responsibility to use each of these gifts and talents wisely regardless of how small or great they seem.

People (me especially) often fall into the trap of jealousy where talent is concerned (I am recovering from the sin of jealousy). There have been so many times when I coveted what other people had to offer - I had become very self focused, taken my eyes of the cross and focused on myself. I chose to focus on the very small detail (me) of God's whole big picture, purpose and plan.

And so with that jealousy came the desire to horde what I had been given - to bury my gifts and talents, for, if I could not have what they had then certainly nobody was going to have what I have. I became very bitter, selfish and very self focused A DRIED UP PRUNE. I complained, griped and whined a lot and I did NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING with my talents and my gifts. I was (I'm recovering, remember) the servant who had the one talent and buried it in the dirt - Matthew 25:24.

What was the talent that I buried? My gift of friendship. In fact I used a quote at one time, very recently in fact, "My friend quota has been met." OUCH! I became very withdrawn and had very, very few close personal friends and that was about it. I did not want to make any new friends, I only wanted the friends I had.

Now that I'm a recovering Christian God is showing me so many things, small things like this, but which are really big significant things in reality. I used to stress so much about His purpose for my life when I already know His purpose - FURTHER HIS KINGDOM! Be friends with people, how else am I going to win them to Christ?????? I can pray all day for someone to get saved - but it is going to take somebody to tell that person about Jesus and maybe even actually pray with them.

God is calling US - His people to do His work! We are His body, He works in us and THROUGH us to accompolish His Purpose - that is why we have been given talents and gifts. They were not given to us so that we could use them for our own selfish desires.

God also gave us free will. He is not going to force us to use our talents and our gifts for Him - He gave us the freedom to choose how we will use them.