Christian Living

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I'd bet that most Christians have wondered, at some point, "How can I actually DO something useful for God?" It's not as hard as we might think, actually. God has already built us with a set of skills that make us useful to him. It's really quite easy to figure out what those skills are and then go about using them.

Actually consider this: not only could you be useful to God, there is not any person on earth who could be more useful to him than you, in the place where you are right now. Your personality has been shaped by the life experiences that you have been through, which in turn have led you to where you currently are - geographically, emotionally, and spiritually. Whatever skills you have for God, whether they are teaching, encouragement, writing, or simply obeying him faithfully, are a direct result of the life experiences that he led you through. If he wanted you to be any different than you are, he could very easily have given you a different set of experiences. The fact that he didn't must lead us to conclude that you have exactly the skills and the passions that he wants you to have.

Proof of this comes from Ephesians 2:10. The two verses preceding that are probably familiar to all of us: "For it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is a gift from God, not of works, so that no one can boast." Paul then adds, "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Do you see that? God has already prepared good works for me. That means he must also have prepared me to do those good works. For example, these works will not include witnessing to someone who only speaks Chinese, because I don't speak Chinese. If that was one of the works God had prepared for me, then he also would have prepared me for them by somehow in my life giving me the ability to learn Chinese. The works that he is readying for me are works that I, personally, will be capable of doing. He draws on the life experiences that he has led me through, the abilities that he has given me and the people that he has placed in my life, all of which have made me the person that I am, and have enabled me to do these good works that he has already prepared for me.

It's very important to keep in mind that these good works are directly related to who we are, not who other people think we should be. Larry Osborne, in his book "The Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God," points out that most people who are very strong in a certain spiritual gift think that everyone should be as good in that gift as they are. Martin Luther, for example, prayed for a minimum of two hours a day. Great Awakening preacher Jonathan Edwards wrote several thousand words per day. Yet they were their own people, prepared uniquely by God for the time and place where they conducted their ministries. If I were to pray as much as Luther, write as much as Edwards, evangelize as much as Billy Graham, I would have no time to use the unique gifts and abilities that God has given me. I would be wasted because I would be ignoring the person that God has made me, while trying to be someone else instead. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 say, "You are not your own; you were bought with a price." Paul's point is that you belong to God; my point is that this also means you do not belong to anyone else, or anyone else's idea of what you should be doing for God. You are who you are because God has made you that way. If Jonathan Edwards tried to pray as much as Luther, he wouldn't have had time to do his writing. If Billy Graham had tried to write as much as Edwards, he would have had no time to preach his crusades. God's plan for your life is unique to you.

I should note that although God prepares good works for us, that doesn't mean we always walk in them. I can remember quite a few times when I have been walking away from a person and suddenly realized that it would have been a great time to tell them about Jesus. The conversation was going that direction, the opportunity was there; I simply didn't seize the moment. This tells us something very important about these skills we have: before they can be used most successfully, they have to be refined and reclaimed.

For example, here I am, writing. I was a good writer before I came to Christ, because of the life experiences God took me through: a family that bought lots of books for me, a creative imagination that made up stories that I wanted to write down, teachers and professors who were able to guide me. Yet the kinds of things that I wrote before coming to Christ were not very uplifting. My magnum opus was a fantasy trilogy, rather like "Lord of the Rings," only more violent and more vulgar. I had this writing skill all along, but I was not using it for God. It needed to be reclaimed first.

If you're wondering what to do in order to be useful for God, simply ask yourself: what have I always been good at? Understand that you are good at these things because God has given you a set of life experiences that enabled you to develop and practice them. Even if you're not using them for God now, you could. That's what reclaiming is all about. If you open your eyes, you will begin to see ways that you can do the things you're already good at, and benefit God, your church, or your friends with them. That's learning to see the good works that God has prepared for you to walk in.

The other thing about these skills is that they often need to be refined. I'm a naturally athletic person, but when I started playing racquetball, it took a while before I could excel. I had the skills, but they needed to be refined through guidance and practice before they were truly useful. Similarly, my writing required criticism from professors, friends, and strangers, in order that I could learn what works and what doesn't, and how I might write better. If anyone thinks he has no skills which could be useful to God, my answer would be that the skills are there, but they might need refining.

God is in control of the entire universe. He is more than capable of orchestrating each of our lives so that we become the exact person he wants us to become, packed to the gills with skills and abilities that are useful to him and to our fellow Christians. All we have to do in order to be useful to God is simply to be who we are, who he has made us to be. Our skills might require reclaiming or refining in order to be truly useful, but we have the basic ingredients already, because of God's sovereignty and his hand on our lives thus far.

Isn't that refreshing? You don't have to be who the preachers or authors or evangelists say you should be. You merely have to acknowledge that God is in control of your life, and that he always has been, and that all along he has been molding and shaping you into the person who he wants you to be. Praise God for the wonderful way he continues his work in the lives of his saints!

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