Step Up

Posted in , , By Nick Smith 1 comments

At church yesterday, our worship leader shared a story that I found interesting. Apparently, when he was growing up, he would never sing in church because he was too embarrassed about his voice. This was the case all the way through high school, but then it finally changed in college. When he got to college, he was at a Christian student union during a worship event and there was a guy he knew who would just belt it out without reservation. What’s so special about that you ask? Well, this guy was a horrible, horrible singer. But the thing is, he didn’t seem to care. All he cared about was what God thought and he was singing from his heart knowing that it was a pleasing sound to God. This changed our worship leader’s perspective and made him realize what really mattered. He started singing.

Hearing this story, I recognized some parallels to my own life, which made me wonder if most of us can connect to this in some way. We all have things we are good at. Areas where we excel. Gifts. Maybe we don’t fully recognize their full potential or maybe we haven’t developed our gifts as far as others, but we DO have them. But in many cases, we don’t utilize our gifts (or maybe we don’t utilize our gifts to further God’s Kingdom).

Why is that, do you think? There are probably as many excuses as there are gifts. It could be that a person is self-conscious (like the worship leader), or maybe he doesn’t use his gift because he feels like he’s showing off when he uses it (because he excels more than others), or perhaps he’s too busy with this, that, and everything to find time to use the gift, but just knowing he is gifted feels like it’s enough.

But the thing is, God gave you your gifts for a reason. He has a purpose. And you are endangering that purpose when you chose to allow the excuse to subdue the gift.

We all make up different parts of the same body (Christ’s body). If God has gifted you as a leg, then the body not only wants you to be a leg, but it NEEDS you to be a leg. If you chose not to exercise that gift, you have disabled the body. Can the body still function? Sure. Can it function at full capacity without you? No.

The body needs you. Step up. (1 Corinthians 12:12-27)