a beautiful thing

There's nothing more beautiful than to watch someone doing just what God created them to do.

We spent 5 wonderful hours with our friend, Mindy, yesterday.  She absolutely exudes the joy of the Lord.  Just being in the same room is inspiring!  Mindy is one of only 10 foreigners living in a city of over 400,000 people in the developing world.  For her, all of life has one purpose: introducing others to Jesus.  Like the apostle Paul, she doesn't want to build on another man's foundation.  So she has her sights set on moving to another city, one where no foreigner has ever lived.  Her eyes sparkle as she tells us one story after another of recent opportunities to share her faith.  In less than a year, before she has even grasped enough language to talk freely about spiritual things, a fledgling church has been born.  She insists that it was others who sowed the seeds, she was just in the right place at the right time to catch the fruit as it fell off the tree.  But she makes it look so easy!

That's usually how it is with spiritual gifts.  The evidence of the Holy Spirit's empowerment is obvious.  After our time with Mindy I mentioned to Danny that I couldn't help questioning whether getting a PhD was the right thing to do.  Maybe I should just tell people about Jesus all day long.  Danny quickly reminded me of what I already knew:  each of us has different gifts.  It's easy to look at someone else who serves so effortlessly in some capacity and think, that's what I should be doing.  But the Spirit empowers each of us uniquely, using our personalities and life experience to contribute something beautiful to His kingdom.  We can't take our cues from someone else, because what looks effortless becomes a mess in the wrong hands.

So, in the words of Dr. Suess*:

"So that is why
I think that I
Just wish to be
Like me."

May His Spirit empower you today to do precisely what He has created you to do!

*Theodore Geisel (aka Dr. Suess), writing under the pen name Theo. LeSieg in I Wish That I Had Duck Feet.