QUIT READING--WRITE!

Quit reading and write! What does that mean?

For much of my life, I've tried to be who I'm not; not who I am. It is so easy to live life by comparison to others. But that is a bad thing. I have read book after book, and so many of the books were written by people unlike me. And then I have thought, "I should be like them; I wish I was more that way." Not a good thing!

I am reminded that God made us all differently. Read Ephesians 4:11-13 for that thought. Read the verses on spiritual gifts in Romans 8 and 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, and you find several different spiritual gifts, given by God, to make His world (and ours) better. And those may only be representative of many, many other gifts or gift-mixes. Add one gift with another gift and you find many different mixes along with the differing personalities and tendencies and preferences that we have, age groups, etc.

Be who you are--not who you aren't!

I was in a meeting a while ago. And one person asked why I was there, because it seemed that I did not "fit" with others there--at least in his mind. I was different from the others. And I allowed that to bother me--to cause much of the remainder of my day to be affected. I compared myself to what others were (as he had done). I compared myself to what he thought I should be like to be with the others, instead of being who I was and who I was created to be. Rough day.

I have lived much of my life feeling unsuccessful--that things were going badly--that I have failed--because of living by the standards and successes of others--instead of the standards of God and myself. So often, someone would ask me how the job was going, and I would quietly say, "Not good," when maybe it was better than I thought, or it was as God intended it to be, but I lived by the success of the other person or what I had read rather than who I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to do.

There is an old saying that I reject, but have nevertheless had to live with. It is, "Those who can, do, and those who can't, teach." So if you are a doer, then you do, but if you cannot perform, then you are only allowed to teach others. Not true! Totally does away with the belief that God wired us all differently, with differing gifts and talents and personalities and inclinations.

I am a teacher--an academic--a student of books and life and school. I am also an equipper--so often more that than a practioner or doer. I have to work at doing, but I don't have to work so hard at studying and learning and understanding and teaching. I am a very good facilitator of small groups especially when it comes to discussion. I am a questioner--one who can ask some very good questions (and sometimes, some very hard questions). I have never led a large group of folk--never led hundreds or thousands to Christ--never seen great miracles occur through my life and service. And yet, there have been miracles, just on a smaller scale. And I need to be more content with those circumstances and who I was made to be with the gifting and talents I was created to have and utilize.

Don't read--write--don't try to live others' stories--live your own story--who you were made to be--made by God--live your uniqueness!

And also, don't project other's gifts on yourself or let others project their gifts on you. Be God's you! Live your story. Write your own book--your own life--God's life for you.

Success--finding God's purpose for YOU--living God's purpose for YOU.

Where are your gifts and talents needed? Wherever God leads you--where He plants you--where He calls you--that is where they are needed. That may be a very large setting--but that also may be a very small setting. Live His story for you.

Quit reading (and projecting the lives of others to yourself)--write (your own story--God's story for you)! Discover where His story and your story are meant to match up. Then don't read--write!