Designs for Hope Uganda Mission Trip Devotional 11 of 12: Using Your Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:1,4-7

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. (ESV)

Recently on a Wednesday night at our church, my wife, Patty, was teaching the kids a lesson about using your gifts to serve God.  It was an extension of the previous Sunday morning children's church Bible story on Joseph, who used his gift of dream interpretations to help others and save lives.  The object of the lesson was to build a small-scale model house out of a variety of materials. Each child was given a specific task to perform.  As is sometimes the case, things did not exactly go as planned.  One of the kids was having trouble performing her task and it was frustrating the efforts of the whole team.  Furthermore, there was a problem with some of the materials - specifically the glue.  In a serendipitous moment of servant leadership, one of the other kids stepped in to help the child having difficulty and while she was doing that, the child that was having trouble figured out what was wrong with the glue and fixed it.  Every child, therefore, successfully contributed to the team effort of building the house even though their final contributions weren't exactly as originally planned.

Several years ago I went on a mission trip to the Amazon jungle basin of Peru.  I was not in the best physical shape for two reasons.  First, I was very much overweight.  However, I had also recently been very ill and - just to be honest - probably not recovered well enough to be traipsing around in the Amazon jungle.  The result was that during the very first day in the jungle I suffered a severe case of heat exhaustion.  It was clear that it would take at least two, if not three days for me to recover.  There is no way I could go back into the jungle. As you might imagine, I was extremely disappointed.  For all appearances my mission trip was prematurely ended.

 As it turns out, though, a village not too far away had a newly established church but was without a pastor.  Knowing we were near, they unexpectedly sent a team to our camp seeking help.  They knew nothing about how to "do" church and wanted someone to teach them the basics that we take for granted every Sunday morning.  Our trip leaders were, at first, struggling to figure out how we could meet their need.  At that point we realized the good that God had planned in the seemingly horrible event of my heat exhaustion.  I could not go back in the jungle, but I am gifted in teaching.  The delegation from the nearby village needed someone to teach them.  So for the next three days, I spent time with these wonderful new Christians teaching them about what it means to be a pastor or a deacon, about baptism and the Lord's Supper, and about basic discipleship.  God provided for the need through the most unexpected (and in human terms undesirable) of circumstances. I can assure you I was blessed by this opportunity more than I ever could have imagined - and probably more than I would have if I had not become ill.

Everyone has natural, God-given talents and abilities.  In addition, every believer has spiritual gifts endowed to him or her by the Holy Spirit.  Both are to be used for the common good, the building up of the church, and for the glory of God.  While we are in Uganda, there will be numerous opportunities for all of us to use our talents and spiritual gifts to accomplish all three of those objectives.  However, like the kids in the object lesson above, we might find ourselves in a situation where our tasks and our gifts are not always aligned appropriately; or circumstances we cannot foresee may change our objectives entirely.  In those moments, we can choose to be frustrated, or we can choose believe that God has already figured out how to get the house built.

In your quiet time today, pray that God will help show you ways in which you can use your talents and spiritual gifts during our trip.

Father, thank you that you have given all of us natural talents and spiritual gifts.  Fill us with your Spirit and help us to accomplish your will through the use of these gifts.