Curses and Giftings
A bit frustrated at the moment, and yet I feel like I should write because I feel that there is a lesson that God is teaching me here in this very moment of my frustration that I wouldn’t otherwise have the conviction to write about tomorrow morning. So I must do it now.
I took this Spiritual Gifts test that is found in the book What You Do Best In The Body of Christ which in and of itself does not accurately depict one’s spiritual giftings (100%), but it does give an idea of where your giftings lie.
According to the test, I have the spiritual gifts of Shepherding, Teaching, Word of Knowledge and Word of Wisdom. They are described briefly as follows:
Shepherding: The divine enablement to nurture, care for, and guide people toward ongoing spiritual maturity and becoming like Christ.
Teaching: The divine enablement to understand, clearly explain and apply the Word of God, thus causing greater Christlikeness in the lives of listeners.
Word of Knowledge: The divine enablement to bring truth to the body through a revelation or biblical insight.
Word of Wisdom: The divine enablement to apply spiritual truth effectively to meet a need in a specific situation.
I do thank God for blessing me with such precious giftings. I’ve reached a point in my life where I have accepted my giftings, where I’ve stopped denying them, and where I’m doing my best to cultivate these into super-tools for the glory of the Lord. So standing where I am as a young twenty-one year old woman, I see in retrospect how God has been cultivating these characteristics in my life throughout my oblivious childhood, up until now. A lot of these characteristics were actually enhanced due to the fact that I had a hard time getting along with others as a child; as a result, I would often stay indoors to read or write, and because of the fact that my father was very articulate in speech and eloquent in the written word, such traits were naturally passed down to me as well. I don’t put myself in a higher category than anyone, but I do know that the Word of God says this:
Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgement.
James 3:1
Recognizing my gifts, I realize that I am being held to a higher standard, and as such, I must hold myself to a standard that surpasses that of regular efforts. Leaders lead the flock, and the flock follows the leader. I’m not going to be a pastor, but I do intend to lead to some degree and if I’m going to be leading people at all, I need to make sure that I’m fit to lead. It’s very difficult, having this bit of a weight on me, but I would have it no other way. I love that Christ is my life and I love that He has further equipped me not only to love Him, but to faithfully minister His name by using His Word. It’s an honor to be chosen for this specific task of being a Teacher. This is my life and my bounty.
So what’s frustrating about this? It wasn’t my giftings that frustrated me, because I know that these things have been confirmed/are already in raw potential to be toned and defined. I’m very confident in my abilities because I am confident in the God who gave them to me, and I believe that God will bless me through the abilities He’s bestowed upon me.
The reason why I’m frustrated is because I began to doubt my giftings after the opinions of two others denied them. I don’t think the details are so much as important as the overall essence of what occurred, but I was highly offended today by callous remarks regarding my spiritual giftings that were made by two Brothers; these remarks were not taken back or apologized for, otherwise I would have easily swept them off. I myself deal a lot in sarcasm and crude humor and the sort, but I think when someone begins to outwardly express their irritation and anger, an apology is due. I received no such thing, which leads me to believe that their remarks were not mere humor but actual opinion.
I’m not as mad at them as I am at myself for letting this affect me as it did, and still somewhat does; I’ve cooled down a bit since writing this. I realized a couple of things about myself in regards to this situation:
1. When I’m angry or when I write about things that cause me frustration, I lose track of my Purpose in writing. I become very loose in my wordings, and can’t focus my sentences as clearly. Writing this has probably taken twice as long to write as a normal, explorative Scripture SOAP would take. I’ve learned that anger is definitely an emotional high that takes away from logic, and from godliness.
2. God is teaching me a lesson here. He is showing me that despite what people may say, Christian or not, it is not what they say that defines who I am, it is what the Creator and the Maker of the Universe says that defines who I am. I find this to be a reoccurring theme in my life right now—God is teaching me at this moment, not to care about what people think in regards to my spiritual life. He is showing me again not to revel in my own reputation and my own giftings, but to revel in who He is. He is taking away my pride, by allowing me to go through this situation. It’s as clear as day to me, so where I began this journal entry as angry, I’m now transitioning into submission; unwilling still, but transitioning. I’m trying to be more open to God’s hands-on way of teaching in my life. This is a humbling situation, and it’s teaching me more about myself as I write.
3. I’m very defensive about the Calling on my life. I realize that where I don’t normally care about people joking or insulting other aspects of myself, I will flare up instantly when someone tries to diminish my giftings or believes that I cannot do what I was called to do. I don’t know how much of this is pride, and how much this is righteous anger.. but I do know that I am sensitive in this area, and sometimes I may react wrongly to defend myself. Being a woman, I realize that I am automatically at a disadvantage not only because the society we live in raises men as intellectually higher than women, but also because biblically, men are supposed to be the head of the household and women are supposed to be submissive. As such, women get a lot of beef for attempting to teach or preach in general, not only from society but from Christian society, no less. So I suppose I took it extra personally that it was my Brothers that made callous remarks against my giftings—I hate it when men think that I can’t fulfill my Calling because I’m a woman. I feel that sometimes I need to prove that I can be just as eloquent, thorough and strong in the Gospel as any other godly man. The interesting thing is that if a Sister made the same comments as they did, I would have swept it off as nothing. I care little to nothing for a what a woman has to say about my abilities and giftings, but for a man to belittle me enrages my Spirit to the core. I realize in general, that I am experiencing the curse bestowed upon Eve after the Fall of Man: “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16). I want to be in control and I want to show that I have power, but in essence, I believe men, and even Christian men, will still look down upon women to some degree because it was bestowed upon us through that Curse.
I don’t exactly know how to end this. All I know is that I can’t dictate the actions of others, and frankly, whether my Brothers decide to apologize to me or not is between their own consciences and God Himself. But what I can control is my own heart toward the Lord, and I know that overall, God just wants me to depend on Him for my reputation and my title. I’m not supposed to prove myself to man, and I’m not supposed to function in my giftings for the sole purpose of proving that I can function in my giftings. For if I did that, what glory would that give to God if it’s all done unto my own glory?
Pride is being cut out of my life on a daily basis, and I thank the Lord so much for it. I didn’t see it earlier today in this situation because I was blinded by my own hurt, but now I see that the reason I was so hurt, was because I was depending on my own human competence to back up my giftings. I can imagine a different instance in which I depended on Christ to flow through my giftings, and when my Brothers slighted me in the same way, this Christianne would laugh and ignore it, because Christ affirms my giftings and not man. I know that I can’t agree with the actions of my Brothers, but I now realize that my reaction was out of hurt pride moreso than anything else.
And I’m glad for it, for in doing so, Christ is more glorified in my life, and that’s all I can ever ask for and all that I want. I want nothing more than Him to be glorified throughout my entire life.. even if that means the whole Christian world is thinking I am incapable of fulfilling my Calling.
I guess the question is.. am I willing to give up my own God-given gifts and abilities in order that I might have a better relationship with Jesus? If I could have absolutely no contribution to the church or no rewards or acknowledgement from the Christian world for my attributes or contributions to spreading the Gospel of Christ, would I be satisfied with giving up all of that just so I could love Jesus more?
Can I give up leading small groups and helping other grow more like Christ, joyfully teaching the Word of God to those who would listen, and giving advice to others in exchange for actually knowing Christ and giving Him the glory? I mean, we think about all of these things that we can do for Jesus, and yet we are not satisfied just being with and knowing Jesus! Because when we first knew Jesus, we didn’t care about what God would do through us to reach the Lost world.. we just wanted Jesus. We just wanted Him.
Although the way that God has gifted me is a tremendous blessing that I hope to utilize and cultivate to its full potential one day, this experience has lastly showed me that I need to make sure I want Christ more than I want to glorify Christ.. if that makes sense. I need to make sure that I seek Him first, instead of seeking how I can preach Him.
I just continuously want to be brought into a state of mind where I would forsake even the amazing gifts of tongues and prophecy, to have Christ and to make Him known. I just want Christ. Him and Him alone. I don’t want these gifts if it means not having Christ. And this, this is what I think God wanted me to reach tonight in writing this. Everything, even spiritual gifts, is worthless in comparison to knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. Echo on Philippians Ch. 3. ?in the end, I want to leave with this passage:
For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10-12
God is just so good to reveal things that need to be brought to light. Thank you Lord.
Jesus, thank you so much for teaching me and humbling me tonight. I prayed to you for strength in the midst of that situation, and you gave it to me. I asked you to take away my pride, and you are doing that for me in ways that I don’t see and in ways that hurt me, but I pray that you do not relent until every sinful ounce of me is gone and gone away for good. I thank you for my gifts, and I pray that I use them to glorify your name in everything that I say and do. I only want to love you more and more, and I thank you for deepening this love for you in my heart. Help me to understand that gifts are nothing in comparison to a knowledge of you, for you are better than any good thing on this earth. Thank you for glorifying yourself in my life again, please do not hide your face from me. Do not let me swayed so easily by the opinions of others; protect me from such things. I love you with all of my heart, Jesus. Help me to know you better and better, forsaking gifts instead for you. Take me away from this world, form me into your likeness.
All the praise and the immense glory and honor goes to Him, Jesus Christ, who loves me and guides me and sees me and acknowledges me. Beautiful Saviour, that’s what He is.
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