After a recent sermon series in which I carefully identified, analyzed, and categorized the biblical gifts of the Spirit, a friend stopped my self-satisfaction with the complaint, “I still don’t know what my gift is!” I got his point. Much of what is said about spiritual gifts is like a Bible commentary that provides reams of detailed helps on Scriptures already understood but skips with little more than obscure mumblings over the hard passages.
A morning recently spent browsing the shelves of a large Christian bookseller confirmed my suspicions. Books and pamphlets concerned with a new understanding of spiritual gifts are rolling off the presses. The various gifts are explored and explained, their value to the Church magnified, their sovereign bestowal assured. But few if any of these same publications are giving concrete, understandable guidelines for discovering the gifts so glowingly described. Perhaps, as with true love, it is to be understood that “when you have it, you’ll know it.” But more and more believers are being taught that they have spiritual gifts, and, realizing they don’t know what theirs is, are asking how they can find out.
Charismatic sources give plentiful instruction in almost clinical detail for the discovery of one of the gifts in particular. While purporting to value all the gifts, most of these sources leave the reader to his own devices if he is to discover his gift among those other than tongues-speaking. So the problem of discovering spiritual gifts is not limited to non-charismatics. It extends across the breadth of the evangelical spectrum.
Fortunately, something is being done about it. Conferences attracting thousands are now proposing to delve into the practical questions of discovering one’s gift. Individual churches are awaking to the fact that their members can be more effective and work more harmoniously if their assignments utilize their spiritual gifts. Many conflicts and much unhappiness have resultedthrough the years from the insistence that all Christians have approximately the same capacity to serve, and from the practice of shoe-horning people into positions for which they have no spiritual aptitude. For example, if a church insists that a man who manages a large office during the week sit on all boards and committees that discuss budgets and buildings when his spiritual gift is that of showing mercy, both the man and the church will suffer. Insisting that all ought to be winning souls (as opposed to witnessing) instead of recognizing that not all have gifts that especially fit them for such personal evangelism is to produce frustrated, defeated believers. And usually a person frustrated in this way will be thwarted in ever finding out what his true ministry in the Body really is.
In some churches, pulpit instruction on the gifts is being accompanied by personal counseling to help people find their own gift. A conference of this sort sometimes results in an about-face in a person’s church responsibility. Other churches have prepared questionnaires to guide members in discovering their gifts.
One of the immediate results of such efforts is to identify areas where one does not have gifts. For example, one may like to think he has the gift of administration. But if in honest soul-searching he admits to himself that no one has ever asked him to chair a committee and that those few responsibilities assigned to him have often gone uncompleted, he can clearly see that administration is not his gift. Often it is easier to decide which gifts we do not possess than which ones we do.
Certain gifts are thought to be more glamorous than others, and it is very easy for Christians to fall into the snare of thinking they have those gifts without evidence to back up this belief. Several months ago I was asked whether I thought I had a certain gift. Thinking that a pastor “ought” to have that particular gift I answered in the affirmative. I gave my answer with a display of assurance in the hope that the questioner would not ask any more questions and expose my own uncertainty. But when he began to query me, I quickly saw that here was a gift I did not possess and never had. Fifteen years of stumbling about came into focus, and with relief I admitted to myself that I did not have to have this gift to be a pastor.
Nowhere does the Bible give a prescription to be followed in finding one’s spiritual gift. But lest any conclude that such discovery is irrelevant to a healthy Christian life or that individual initiative is unnecessary, St. Paul begins First Corinthians 12:1 with the explanation, “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.” He concludes that watershed chapter with the injunction to “eagerly desire the greater gifts” and picks up the same theme in chapter 14: “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts” (v. 1). In writing to Timothy he warns him not to neglect his gifts.
Clearly, the recognition of spiritual gifts is foundational to the operation of the Church as a Body. In fact, these two thoughts (the Church is a Body made up of dissimilar parts, and each part has received a special gift of the Spirit) are always linked. In every extended treatment of either thought, the other is present also. This linking of ideas is found in Romans 12, in chapters 12 and 14 of First Corinthians, and in Ephesians 4.
If our local churches are ever to be more than collections of believers who congregate once a week to listen to one member (always the same one) speak, then we must discover how God has uniquely gifted each one to contribute to the whole. The goal of the Body of Christ is to “be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the full measure of perfection found in Christ” (Eph. 4:12, 13). The context says that certain gifts of ministry, such as the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, are given, not to accomplish this goal for the Church, but to equip God’s people for works of service so that all may share in reaching the goal of maturity. For much of two thousand years, clergymen have been trying to induce maturity from the pulpit. Now they are discovering that they can help lay people discover their gifts so that all together can do what they alone cannot.
The place to begin in the discovery of spiritual gifts is one’s own desires and aspirations. What spiritual gift do you want? It is important that the answer not be cast in terms of what you feel others expect of you. What gift or gifts may currently be in vogue among your friends is not at all important. What spiritual gift do you desire to have? It may well be that your personality characteristics, background, training, and present circumstances have all converged to create in you some burning desire that will find fulfillment in the sovereign bestowal of a particular gift. But it is far more likely that God has already given you a spiritual gift, which has been lying dormant. The desires and aspirations you feel are caused by the very gift within you, pressing to be released in loving service.
Regrettably, there is a kind of preaching that creates in the minds of many people the idea that God’s will must always run counter to man’s will, that surrender always calls for the relinquishment of what we hold dearest. This may sometimes be so, but more often God will lead us in paths and directions we would choose for ourselves.
We are often held back from spiritual ministries we would enjoy by the fear that we are not properly equipped. What we find is that in the doing we discover the needed gifts. The internal desire signals the gift.
In examining what our desires are we might well consider the church of which we are a part. A series of questions may help to focus our true concern and avoid excessive introspection.
“What is my greatest concern for my church?”
“What do I think is very important in other churches I visit?”
“What is lacking in the life of my church?”
“If I could be assured of success, what would I most like to contribute to my church fellowship?”
Out of such heartsearching will often come the conviction that some spiritual gift is not in evidence. And if it is needed and not evident, perhaps it has been given but is being repressed. When this kind of concern is vented in prayer it can be the fulfillment of Paul’s injunction to “earnestly desire spiritual gifts.” Understanding what you would wish in the way of spiritual gifts is not a foolproof guide, but it is a valuable starting point.
If you have honestly faced up to your own desires, giving them content by thoroughly understanding the nature of spiritual gifts and by soaking those desires in prayer, then you have no doubt narrowed your field of vision. Certain gifts hold no appeal for you. There may be several that seem desirable. Now you are ready to move to the second consideration: What spiritual abilities do others see in you?
The Apostle Paul obviously saw in Timothy gifts and abilities of which Timothy himself was not aware. Paul’s letters to Timothy are loaded with encouragement, reminders, and instructions. So too with us. We do not always possess a clear self-vision. There often seems to be some corner clouded by fog. Occasionally our self-appraisal is inflated; more often it is depressed. Well, then, how can we tell what others see in us? How can we examine those areas of our personality hidden to self-view? As with the examination of our own desires, a series of questions may help.
“Have spiritually mature people told me of certain abilities I possess?”
“What am I often asked to do in the way of spiritual ministry?”
“Do others express appreciation more often for one ministry I have, rather than another?”
“Are there certain things I am never asked to do?”
To be most helpful, these questions are to be asked within the framework of a genuinely caring fellowship. The congregation where people are identified by name but not really known to one another will prove a limited source for answers. But even so, by combining what others see in us with what we already know about ourselves, it ought to be possible to narrow the field of potential spiritual gifts even further.
Usually it is at this point that people drop out. For the third step is to begin to minister. There is to be no hanging back, no waiting until all the answers are in and the picture is complete. Do you really want the gift of teaching and is the opportunity present? Then apply yourself to the Word of God for however much study it takes to make the Scriptures plain. Do you want the gift of administration and is there a committee in your church lacking direction? Volunteer, and then throw yourself into the project. The reward comes, not in a testimonial dinner, but in the sense of seeing a job through to completion. Do you long for the gift of mercy? Visit patients in a nursing home or hospital and pray for God’s love to be expressed through you.
Now all of this is work! And here is the most fundamental misapprehension of the whole subject of spiritual gifts. The gifts are not ornaments to be hung on invisible pendants for display. Every gift named in the New Testament is given for the purpose of service. And unless one has a servant’s heart and is willing to acquire a servant’s hands, he will wait in vain for the gift to be conveyed. The whole idea is expressed in Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.”
In the final analysis, the presence or absence of a particular gift is confirmed by experience. Use whatever gift you think you may have in the service of Christ’s people. If it is genuine, there will be visible results to that service. Confirmation will come, not because we feel good about our teaching or committee work or whatever, but because lives are being rearranged and problems solved and heartaches mended. And when that begins to happen you can be sure that others will sense a new dynamic at work in your ministry. God will be glorified and your gift will be affirmed by others.
In a sense this third step is a matter of trial and error. Some ministries you try may not have discernible results. You may long to have the gift of encouragement, to be able to counsel confused believers and point them to effective solutions. But no one comes to you for help. You are rebuffed when you volunteer your assistance. You begin to guess that your gift lies elsewhere, at least for now. But while the process of discovery may seem tedious, if you have listened closely to what your desires dictate and what others think, more often than not the trial will turn to triumph.
You will discover the freedom there is in knowing how you may best minister to the Body. There is release from the fear of failure. You need not measure up to anyone else. You will revel in the liberty to do what God has equipped you to do, knowing that others are prepared to minister according to their gifts, making the whole complete. Learning your gift will take time. Using your gift will take the rest of your life.
