I Hope You Know You are Useful

 

My dear friends:

In the immortal words of the Beatles- "It's been a long, cold, lonely winter." Seriously, this winter has felt longer, colder and lonelier to me than all others in my (short, relatively-speaking) life. I've been busy. I can't believe the winter is almost over and I haven't posted a single article! My humblest apologies.

When the winter drags on and seems to dump foot after foot of snow on my efforts to uplift, I begin to feel insecure. I might even being to complain. Short, dark days lead to short tempers and sicknesses and that might lead to a falling-away from God. Sometimes I can get so bogged down by the cold winter months that I forget to thank God for my blessings. After all, Thanksgiving was months ago and I took care of it all then, right? When I don't praise God for what He has given me, I can get distracted by what He hasn't.

It is a truth universally accepted among Christians that God has gifted each of us with something that can and ought to be used to benefit the church. We all have talents, great or small. Still, many of us struggle with feelings of inadequacy - the feeling that we are not good enough, that we will never be good enough, that we have not been properly equipped for the task set before us. The feeling that we are useless.

This, quite frankly, is untrue.

God made this real for me recently when I was impromptu "counseling" a younger person on her own feelings of inadequacy. Why, she asked me, did God make her so imperfect? Why did she annoy other people? Why wasn't she good enough? Why? Why? And I was forced to confront my own insecurities and acknowledge that I, too, had for some time been comparing myself to others.

But that's just it. In comparing myself to others, I had taken for granted the fact that God wants to use me as I am. As He has made me.  All the jealousy and bitterness and holding on to hurt in my life was building a wall between who I am and who I desire to be, and causing me to feel like a failure in my spiritual life. Why was I not making a difference? Because instead of realizing my own gifts and utilizing them for a higher purpose, I was forcing myself to look better in order to gain recognition for my talents. What I realized while I was talking to this girl was that my talents, my beauty, and all the other assets that God has given me are not "given to me". I don't own them. They are not mine to squander and use at will, as fodder for jealousy, to please myself or the world, or even as an outlet for emotions. They are God's.

Your words are God's. Your mind is God's. Your face is God's. Your music is God's. And so on and so on, for whatever your particular assets are. Fill in the blank. _____________ is God's. It belongs to him.

I told the girl that I was counseling that God, who is perfect, had made her in His image (Genesis 1:27), so He must have envisioned someone he could use for his purpose when he created her (Psalm 139:13). She felt that she had no assets, no talents, and no particular beauty to speak of. That does not determine worth. Upon salvation, God transforms your
life and that is what gives you worth! Not how great you play the piano or how well you deal with people or how attractive you are, or any of the other things that this world will tell you are important. If you have been so blessed with abilities and assets, it is your responsibility to use them for a higher purpose. And if not, well, you have to find something that you are good at and do that (1 Peter 4:10). But you are NOT useless. And neither am I.

I watched this kid show once, while I was babysitting my little cousins, about this bee who only wanted to be "very useful", because his mommy bee had complimented his sister bee on her helpfulness. "Being useful" was his only goal, so he went around trying to find jobs which he would be good at, but he kept messing them up. Like: this little bee went to help the mailman put a letter in the mailbox and accidentally caused him to spill the letters all over the place. I think that some people feel that way - they see others who have different gifts and they go around trying to find their own niche without success, eventually becoming discouraged because they do not have what others do. They don't feel "very useful". But they are comparing themselves too much. All they can see is what they don't have. But what we haven't been given shouldn't concern us. It does not matter what our shortcomings are - God still desires to use us. He desires to use us in spite of ourselves (Psalm 71:20).

The body of Christ can't function if all we focus on is ourselves, nursing jealousy, bitterness, and a prideful spirit. In order to be useful, I first have to surrender to him. I have to realize that I am not my own. This simple truth is something that I have struggled with so much. So how can we combat this winter slump?

1. REWIND YOUR LIFE

Take a moment and forget about what you don't have. Just don't think about it. Instead, focus on one thing that you think you are good at - being kind, encouraging through music, defending your faith, writing - and rewind your life. How far has God brought you with that particular talent in the last five years? Ten years? Twenty? How has God used it to change your life or to impact others lives around you?  Nothing God ever does is pointless, including giving you whatever special talent you have.

2. HAVE DEVOES

It sounds so stereotypically Christian: read your Bible, kids! It makes life better! And the truth it, it doesn't make life better, not really. It doesn't promise happiness to Christians - in fact, It says we will be mistreated (John 16:1-4). But God's Word DOES have power! Not only does a daily dose of Scripture make one feel closer to God, but it shows what God wants us to be doing with our life, whether that means taking a passage straight like it says or modeling a situation off of a Bible hero or heroine. Not to mention the impact of prayer! I have personally found that even when God says no to whatever road I wanted to walk, he will show me a more meaningful path to take. Just the other day, I prayed for our youth group retreat to be the "best ever" because it was going to be my last one. Instead of answering that prayer the way I wanted it to be answered - by giving me a super fun awesome weekend - God decided to show me some things about Himself and myself that I never knew. The weekend turned out to be very draining for me. But I have to say, it was the "best ever." Having devotions daily (including a time of prayer) by yourself, with friends, with family or with a mentor is one of the best ways to get psyched up about how you fit in to the body of Christ.


3. USE YOUR GIFTS

They say practice makes perfect. Without ever actually using your gift for God's glory, how can one expect to gain any reward? I was using my gifts, all right - but only to make myself feel good, look good, and seem, well, good. The fact is that no matter how good we look in this life, it does not matter. You can be the most famous, most beautiful singer on Broadway, or you can be the best soccer player and be the envy of every teenage boy in Britain, or you can write like Emily Bronte and Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain combined, but if your heart is not in the right place, you can't make a dent. You can't. And you won't. Using your gifts is the last step to feeling useful because if you don't take a step back and reevaluate what God has done for you, and if you don't get back into a daily habit of communion with God, your heart will most likely be stuck in that winter slump and you won't be of use to anyone, not really. A lasting impact is not something we should strive for in this life - we should strive to make an impact in the next.

So, dear friends, if you ever feel spiritually useless, remember that God does not make pointless things. Every jar has value and a purpose to him, no matter how unattractive it may seem on the outside. If we can just remember to rewind our lives to remember what God has done for us, get back into the habit of daily devotions and an active prayer life, and use our talents to bring glory to God and be a light to bring others to the knowledge of Christ, we will be able to "make a dent" in our society and in our world, not only in this life, but in the next as well.