To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit
for the common good.
—1 Corinthians 12.7
What gifts you have—your humor, your patience,
your love of beauty, your trust—
are not for you.
They are for the common good.
Jesus did not turn water into wine for himself.
Your spiritual gifts are whatever ways
the Spirit moves in you—
maybe a talent or ability,
maybe just the way you come at the world.
Your gifts include what you think of as weakness:
your ready tears, your slow pace, your silence;
the world needs those, too.
The community needs your gifts,
needs all of who you are.
Not the pretend parts,
the things you do to fit in
or to keep people from reacting.
But the real you, Spirit alive in you
in all her peculiar ways.
It’s not arrogant to share that with the world.
It’s evangelism.
Trust the God that lives in you.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net