I read a passage of scripture this morning (1 Corinthians 9) and it made me think about us pursuing our spiritual gifts. I am going to focus on the end of the chapter.

  • The first thing I took away is that following God is not easy, it actually takes work. Sometimes I think… “oh I know what my gift is, it should just come naturally and I don’t need to work at developing it…” However, I don’t think we can read this and have that perspective. It seemed like Paul worked pretty hard to develop his gift of preaching.
  • Secondly, Paul says that we are like athletes, training for a race, training for a prize that will last. The year that we won nationals while cheering at NCSU we had practice 4 days a week at 5:30AM, games, 2-3 workouts with a trainer per week, and then got together outside of practice to work more. We gained a prize that means a lot to me, but this prize is not eternal. My national championship ring isn’t what determines my worth and value as a person. But it did take a lot of work to get it.

Some questions:

  • How come I was/am able to spend so much time disciplining myself to meet these athletic goals? 
  • What things help me to pursue spiritual formation?

One thing I want to pursue more is listening to God. I talk to him a lot, but I don’t listen very often. It will take some time to develop this ability, but I’m excited to do it. Actually, I’m a little nervous… what if he tells me something I don’t want to hear? I guess I’ll learn to listen and grow through that. Here goes…

 

Is there anything that you want to pursue?