For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

There is a common thread to our calling; we are all gifted to serve other people in the big picture of life…

Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Here’s one of the most useful and accurate tools I’ve found to identifying spiritual gifts.

Once you identify your gifts, the next step in the process is personal development. Stay tuned in to the “clues” that could provide further direction to zero in on your true identity in Christ Jesus and your work in the Lord’s name:

• The people or places we can think of as opportunity.
• Your past experiences certainly may play a key role as well.
• Take stock of the resources that you have – be it your education or assets, or maybe even your current position at work.
• Listen carefully to the folks around you that you would consider to be wise counsel.
• Focus on opportunities – they may be a very important doorway to fulfilling your mission.

These are all critical elements to identifying your calling… and they all lead to the same conclusion:

Getting to know yourself is the most relevant factor to identifying your calling. (Click To Tweet)

Our gifts are the things we do with seemingly little to no effort. I could rattle out these blog posts every morning. Writing is certainly a gift for me, and evidenced by the Holy Spirit dwelling within me as I never had that gift before I came to know Jesus and accept Him as Lord and Savior.

Why do it? It is all about fulfillment. We are an empty shell without fulfillment in the Lord, left with a void in our soul that nothing else can fill. It’s about getting to know oneself. Then, we can finish the painting of the thing called life, like an artist fills the canvas. Starting with nothing but a blank sheet, God created each of us specifically for a unique and special purpose. We are each His crowning achievement.

Will you be fulfilling yours?

Image courtesy of jandismall.wordpress.com

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Harvest time!!

As I continue experiencing a fascination with people and their personalities, I’m enlightened with new insight on harvesting this gem we call wisdom. Just this week the quest became clearer…

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
the man who gains understanding,
for she is more profitable than silver
and yields better returns than gold.
She is more precious than rubies,
nothing you desire can compare with her. Proverbs 3:13-15

So wisdom is the crown jewel? Well, there is a call to action that is even more valuable.

Let me toss you a little known nugget on wisdom: while wisdom may one day sneak up and bite you from an angle where you weren’t even looking, Proverbs 3:15 and other verses on wisdom teach that we should actively seek this treasure.

Of course, you can find wisdom in the Bible, and I believe we should seek this gem there! As we’re called to live in this world and interact with lots of different people, from all walks of life, in the name of peace, love and unity, we will energetically discover fresh insight and understanding from the people around us.

Here are two facets of how to harvest wisdom easily in your daily walk, from other people:

1. Surround yourself with wise people.

Think quality, not quantity. It’s not a contest to see who can gather the most Facebook friends. Friends are both a choice and a process.

The people who are closest to you either propel you forward to who you would like to become, or they will hold you back. The cool part is that you get to choose. (Click To Tweet)

Some folks have a tendency to drain us like water heading for a gutter, while others set our souls on fire. Surround yourself with those who are smart, optimistic and grounded. Contribute to them as much as you feel they do to you.

– It starts with knowing the person that you want to be. Even if you’re not where you want to be, you should have a personal mission statement – that should be a road map to where you’re heading.

Since we are the sum of our 5 closest friends, often when we recognize that we need to change ourselves we have to gain distance from some and possibly all of these people.

The truths about the people around you?

• Friends are a choice, and they are in your life because you’ve chosen to put them there. Extending this thought it includes most people except maybe for your parents, you didn’t actually get to choose them, they sort of “chose” you though.

• Friends are also a process. In saying that please recognize that it takes time to process who people are and what they’re all about.

“If I associate with chickens, I will learn to scratch at the ground and squabble over crumbs. If I associate with eagles, I will learn to soar great heights.” Andy Andrews

Once you start connecting with wise people you’ll start to notice things. Like a compass always points to the north, the course of action of a helpful servant guides a path toward positive change and improvement. So we can use the “process of friends” to not only gain wisdom but also influence the outcome of humanity, just like the butterfly effect. Glean and savor this opportunity of wisdom.

2. Have a servant’s spirit.

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Galatians 5:13

The cool thing about this is people will gravitate toward you when you humbly serve their needs. Humility is magnetic, and through serving others needs your eyes and ears will open up a new world of wisdom. Again, you’ll start to notice things that before you simply overlooked. People, especially those within your circle of influence, will fill you up with knowledge and understanding. Indeed, some of the things you see and hear in the daily walk are not all that becoming of humanity – however, we should remain encouraged!

“Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.” ~ Stephen Covey

Connection is sort of like admonishment – no connection, no admonishment. Just click click and turn it off. Disconnect, done and done. Granted, there is something more substantial to one-on-one connection, a level of connection or intimacy that you just don’t find in a large group of people. Sometimes connecting/disconnecting is just that easy, other times it’s like a drip in a bucket that keeps you up all night… why, Lord, why??

Frequently, God puts people in your life to reveal something about you that you’re not paying attention to. Have you ever had the thought, “I don’t really want that one to be in my realm, so why ARE they now within my workplace, my next-door neighbor, or the parents of my kid’s friends?” I see this all the time in my world. Remember my friend Mark Enge? I wasn’t looking to hire Mark when my close friend said, “Give Mark a job.” I was under the impression that he was one of my people projects, that I was serving his needs. That was true in part, while at the same time it was very much the other way around. He’s one of the people who I talk about in the story of my faith journey.

Some of the people who God has placed in your pathway are there for just that reason – to help you. Be thankful. Be thankful even for the adversarial ones. Yep, I have to be thankful for that one too. Be thankful and humbly serve their needs. You’ll be amazed at what the Holy Spirit will reveal and orchestrate in your life. People and relationships are a two-way street. So is wisdom when you surround yourself with the right people, and have a servant’s heart.

How important do you believe the people around you are to your self-improvement, or to reaching your calling?

Image courtesy of B4bees on flickr.com

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Andy is a noticer, as is the drifter, sage of a wise man named Jones, the protagonist of Andy’s book, “The Noticer,” and it’s sequel. Jones is a bit of a healer who notices little things about people and creatively finds a way to help them. It’s an inspiring story of love and putting everything into its proper perspective.

I must say there are times when I wish I didn’t notice things. I recall an abrasive co-worker from many years ago who I tried to help out and it just turned into an adversarial situation. Bummer. First and foremost, people have to want to recognize their own shortcomings and want to change before we can really help them. This usually goes back to the condition of our heart.

Like a compass always points to the north, the course of action of a helpful servant guides a path toward positive change and improvement. (Click To Tweet)

The compass always aligns with the earth’s magnetic field.

 

How do I use this ability to help other people? It’s a gift to be able to pick up on something, and it takes a master noticer to figure out how to be able to use the knowledge to influence and bring someone to a better place through forward motion. I have found 3 keys that have been helpful to mastering the skill:

– It involves putting everything into its proper perspective. I write a lot about perspective. One of my favorite recent pieces has been “God, Politics, America and Morality: Why I Remain So Encouraged.” Our world can seem pretty crazy at times… until we are able to put things into perspective. In Andy’s books, Jones touches the lives of a struggling married couple, teenagers, businesspeople facing bankruptcy, and many other people struggling through the obstacles of life. Jones teaches that no matter how bad things look, it’s all in how you look at things that helps to keep life’s many challenges in perspective. Perspective always goes back to one key facet: our way of thinking, the same as cultural change always focuses us back to individuals, and to their thinking. How do we create positive change? It all starts with noticing, and effectively fostering change… consider how we think, instead of what we think.

“Every human has four endowments – self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… the power to choose, to respond, to change.” Stephen Covey

Waiting on the world to change? Hmmm….

– An influential noticer works through the opportune season of connection. Even a comment in passing to a stranger comes through a brief interlude of connection.

Disciple groups at church are a great place to connect. We also connect with lots of different people at work. All of our friends count as connections, and opportunities to influence as well. From a warm smile that is shared with the passing stranger on the street to the deep purposeful process of engagement with a spouse or coworker, the bigger picture of hope is developing with every day spent serving the needs of other people.

Please don’t confuse being a noticer with being a gossiper. Living as a noticer calls us to help other people. Gossip is never that way – it only says something about you and literally nothing at all about the person that you’re talking about. It defines your heart and not theirs. That’s just the truth that I overheard from God. In order to help someone out you have to talk with them, not about them. Whatever handicap we’re looking at, whether it’s a biggie like Tiger Woods’ or simply a smoldering blemish from the past, it’s all going to be OK when we’re connected in God’s dysfunctional family… and with a keen noticer intent on doing good in the name of Jesus.

– The influence of a noticer happens in the right time.

We know there is season for everything under the sun…

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1

I’ve also found, in life, there are experiences that occurred that I can’t really “tie back” to anything definite until years later… then, when the “ahhh haaa” moment shows up, I can put the pieces of the puzzle together and everything fits together just right. That’s everything coming full circle.

It’s funny how God’s timing is often very different from mine. Being a noticer is often the same way… sometimes it is evident we can interject constructive input in the here and now, other times it may be years later that we’re most effective. That can be a heavy weight to carry when you’re trying to help your kids. It comes with the territory but another given in finding contentment whatever the circumstances. Plus, there is always a feeling of joy when you can help someone else move forward in their journey. Praise the Lord for that and for the gift!

Do you think of yourself as a noticer? What do you find to be most effective in ministering to other people?

Image courtesy of “Vero Villa” on flickr.com

The post The Keen Skills Of An Influential Noticer first appeared on I'm Just Thinkin'.

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My dose of humility in the sport of basketball came at the tender age of 12. I loved to play this game and tried out for the Junior High School team in Vero Beach. I didn’t make the team, and was offered the equipment manager position.

If you’re wondering what the equipment manager does this person basically was in charge of rounding up the basketballs and sweaty towels for the team during practice and games. I traveled with the team for the away games and sat with the coaches and team… I sat with those players that were on the bench anyway. I got really good at “bench dribbling” and at spinning the basketball on my finger. So good, I can still pick the ball up and give it a whirl.

When I first decided to take the equipment manager job I was sort of embarrassed. I thought to myself… why? Why should I do this? The coaches encouraged me. I thought, this seems dumb! The coaches were persistent, they cornered me in the hallway at school and asked me in such a way that it seemed like an honor. It seemed silly because I was the only one doing it, and my other friends who didn’t make the team just went about their lives and did something else.

I found out much later that this was an important lesson in humility. Here’s why:

• The equipment manager was a servant. This was a role of helping other people with little expectation of anything in return. I looked at this as an opportunity to help other people reach their goals. That made me feel good about myself.
• I was able to overcome the one thing that seems to keep people from being humble… my sense of pride. Remember, my first thought was “this equipment manager thing is dumb!” It seemed lowly and embarrassing. I did it anyway, and found out quickly at an early age that having an ego is much more embarrassing than being humble. (Click To Tweet)

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