Discovering My Spiritual Gifts

"Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts." - 1 Corinthians 14:1a (NIV)

I've always had a hard time figuring out what I'm gifted at. I know what I can do and like to do, but I never thought of those things as gifts from God. I always felt like I was bragging if I said I was good at something. But, God wants us to desire spiritual gifts. He wants us to know what those gifts are so we can use them to serve Him and grow closer to Him.

As I've mentioned in past blogs, my church is using a system by Monvee (www.monvee.com) to help us become better disciples and show us our strengths and our weaknesses, how we learn best and what we do that makes us feel closer to God. I learn best by reading and writing, and worship - music, Bible study and sermons - make me feel closer to God. My strengths are leadership, being practical and detail-oriented, logical, dependable and structured. My weaknesses are anger, frustration, judging, displeasure, perfectionism and being right. But, underneath all of that are other spiritual gifts. I have the gifts of faith, mercy, giving, helping, service, hospitality and administration. Are you asking yourself, "And just how does she know that?" I'll tell you how.

A few months ago, I attended a meeting at church looking to see if there were other areas in the church I could serve. We were given a questionnaire to fill out about what our passions, talents, skills and spiritual gifts are. I really, really dislike these type of questionnaires because I have to truly think about my answers and take a good hard look at myself. Everyone else seemed to know these things about themselves since they were writing away. Or so I thought. Once we were finished with the questionnaires and discussion began, I realized I wasn't the only one who had trouble with these four things. So we were given some website assessments to take. I want to share those websites with you.

The first one is free and it helps to identify your spiritual gifts. The website is http://www.buildingchurch.net/g2s.htm. The assessment takes between 20-45 minutes to finish. I liked this assessment because it gives your score as soon as you finish the assessment and it gives you the definition of your gifts. I'm probably going to take it again because things have changed in my life and some of the answers I gave don't apply anymore. The other assessment helps to identify your talents. The website is https://tdg.idakgroup.com/tdg/index.cfm. There is a $27 fee to take this assessment but you can do a free preview to see what the assessment looks like and what it can do before you have to decide to buy. I haven't take this one yet but it looks like something I will do in the future.

Knowing our gifts, passions and talents can help us to decide where we can serve God best. The first step to that, though, is obeying Him. He gave us our talents in the expectation that we would use them to honor Him in our lives. If we are truly intent on serving God, furthering the mission He gave us to share Jesus with others, and not becoming "stagnant" Christians, we should know the gifts He has given us. Discovering my spiritual gifts was eye-opening and revealed that I am serving exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. Not to say that there won't be somewhere else God wants me to serve or something else He wants me to be doing, but, for now, I know I'm right where He expects me to be.

"If you want to discover your spiritual gifts, start obeying God. As you serve Him, you will find that He has given you gifts that are necessary to follow through in obedience." - Anne Graham Lotz

Heavenly Father, I want to thank You for the gifts and talents You've bestowed on me. I haven't always used them to please You but I want to do so now. Help me to step into my gifts with a willing heart, humbly and obedient to You. May all honor and glory be Yours as I use these gifts. In Jesus' name, Amen.