I believe that when God created us, He placed within each of our vessels a variety of gifts, callings and possibilities and watched to see how we use them. There are those among us who seem to be able to pick up an oddly shaped box with a complexity of strings attached, and somehow manipulate its components to produce the smooth melodious sound of a cello, violin, guitar or other instrument. There are others whose hands are gifted with the ability to translate what they see or imagine into amazingly real and complex works of art – paintings, sketches, sculptures, quilts, mosaics, just to name a few. Some seem to have been created to sing and it just seems to ripple off their vocal cords as easily as breathing. I’m sure almost everyone has encountered a special teacher who opened a world of knowledge and possibilities in ways no one else could. Perhaps you’ve had a gifted nurse whose very touch seemed to soothe and heal, or a speaker who motivated and challenged you to reach beyond the norm, rise above the crowd, and step outside the box. And I’m sure we’ve all seen talented athletes who seemed to be made for the game – Michael Jordan, Mohammed Ali, David Beckham, LeBron James, and Tiger Woods, for example - and there are so many other gifts, talents and callings in life.

I remember thinking about Michael Jackson after he released his first couple of solo albums. His creativity seemed to have reached into some futuristic time zone and brought back music, choreography, and special effects that blew our minds and made us wonder how someone so young could be this talented. He was a musical genius, a Mozart for our times. And I got this really clear impression that God was well pleased with him, which was strange from Pentecostal point of view. But I realized that God’s pleasure was as a Father who was looking at this child who had challenged and stretched himself, took every creative thing he had within himself, reached beyond his limitations, poured everything he had into it, and had come up with this amazing product. How could a father not be proud of such a child? I remember a time in the ‘80s when the Lord spoke and said He was going to usher in a season of redemption for Black men in this country. They would bow the knee, hearken to voice of the Lord and follow His direction, He would exalt and prosper them, but they would have to be willing to submit. Because of this, there are men like Bishop Jakes, who seemed to rise up from out of nowhere, but took God at His word, submitted the whole of his mind, soul, and being to God for His purposes and God exalted him. I look at these examples of children with whom God has been well pleased and wonder about the rest of us.

There are so many of us with gifts, talents and callings in the church.  Look at the Fred Hammonds, Hezekiah Walkers and Walter Hawkins’s. Where would we be if the melodies God had given them had stayed in their minds only? Look the Billy Grahams, Joyce Meyers’s, and James Dobsons. Where would our lives be without these kinds of people who challenged us to go deeper or reach higher in the Lord? Where would we be without a Pastor Joshua Salomon, or Pastor Hairston, or Pastor Salomon Sepulveda, or whoever it was who showed us the pathway to Christ and challenged us to walk therein? What if all their gifts, talents and callings had remained only possibilities?

Paul told the Corinthians that he was being poured out like winefor their sakes. That meant that he had given up his own will and allowed the Lord to determine how and how much of him to be used for ministry. He had become all things to all men that he would draw some to Christ. He had taken the gifts and talents God had given him, enhanced and polished them, and had resubmitted them to God to be used in whatever way He thought necessary. He had held nothing back of himself, left nothing in reserve. Paul had become the sacrifice and had surrendered himself completely to God to be poured out as He saw fit, wherever He saw fit.

 I once wrote a poem during a desperate time in my life, and all I remember of it is the first line – “A poet lives inside of me, a sculptor and a dancer”. Those who know me well know that I’m not very poetic, I haven’t worked very much with clay, and I definitely don’t have the right moves, but the seeds of these talents lie deep within, waiting to be nurtured and allowed to grow. If they aren’t given a chance to grow, they will still be simply seeds when I go to the grave, where no one will ever know they existed. I think there are many whose gifts, talents dreams, and possibilities died with them. I don’t want to still have unused possibilities or unrealized dreams buried with me. I want to have lived life, laughed loud, loved well, and been all I could be for the Lord. I want to have been poured out for the Lord and I want my vessel to be empty. I want to be able to say like Paul, “I have run the race, I have finished my course, and I have kept the faith.” I want to have spent all of myself for the cause of Christ. And I want Him to smile when He looks at me and say “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into my rest.”