taken from chapter 32
The Purpose Driven Life
by Rick Warren
God deserves your best.
He shaped you for a purpose, and he expects you to make the most of what you have been given. He doesn't want you to worry about or covet abilities you don't have. Instead he wants you to focus on talents he has given you to use.
The best way to discover your gifts and abilities is to experiment with different areas of service. Until you're actually involved in serving, you're not going to know what you're good at.
Examine your experiences and extract the lessons you have learned. We rarely see God's good purpose in pain or failure or embarrassment while it is happening. Only in hindsight do we understand how God intended a problem for good.
Since God know what's best for you, you should gratefully accept the way he has fashioned you. Instead of trying to reshape yourself to be like someone else, you should celebrate the shape God has given only to you. Part of accepting your shape is recognizing your limitations. Nobody is good at everything, and no one is called to be everything. We all have defined roles.
Jesus' parable of the talents illustrates that God expects us to make the most what he gives us. We are to cultivate our gifts and abilities, keep our hearts aflame, grow our character and personality, and broaden our experiences so we will be increasingly more effective in our service.
If you don't exercise your muscles, they weaken and atrophy. In the same way, if you don't utilize the abilities and skills God has given you, you will lose them.
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