Do You Feel Fulfilled?

Fulfillment … a basic need of every human being….. Many people strive fruitlessly all their life to satisfy this need and miss the obvious.

Allow me to use a silly example… An inventor/creator builds a machine to wash clothes. In every way this machine is suited to do the job intended. If it is forced into any other function , such as cooking food, it will be hopelessly inadequate . In the same way God has created each one of us equipped to achieve fulfillment in doing what God created us to do. Somehow most of us have the ill-begotten idea that to serve God we must do something we dislike or find difficult.. Actually the opposite is true… To please God most we get to do what we love best !!

Contrary to what many may think, I don’t believe it is hard to discover the talent or gifting that is uniquely ours. Proverbs 18:16 says , “A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.” Here we have the answer… Your gift will make room for you … In other words, it is part of who you are….it will be what people notice about you , without you having to force or promote it.
What do people like best about you ?? For what do you get the most complements? What do you love to do ?
I have a cousin who loves to entertain.. To be an invited guest in her home is a delight and blessing, and I always find her inspiring . (You can see evidence of her joy on her blog – see link whatmattersmost- ) While I enjoy having people as guests in my home, I always feel to some degree insecure, worrying and hoping that everything is going to be alright.. Hospitality is not my special talent, although I do make an effort to be a gracious hostess. My joy is teaching.. I used to feel guilty thinking that I had the best gift… – but then I realized that everyone who has discovered their gift feels that theirs is the best one. God gives us the desires of our heart to make it easy for us to please Him.

But lest we become prideful of our talent , there is a built-in ‘humbling factor’ in each gift. We have the choice of using our gift to bring blessing or cursing to the people whose lives we touch. I know a woman who loves to give advice . I’m sure her gift is to be an exhorter but she is so overbearing with her advice - giving it when it is neither wanted nor asked for - that people tend to avoid her . We need to grow in learning how to express our gift so that it will be honoring to God and a blessing to others.

Often we strive to be like someone we admire and are discouraged knowing we can never measure up. Isn’t it neat to know that we can please God best by simply being who we are, and doing what we find pleasure in doing?? Whether our gift is worth one talent or ten talents (Matt.25:14-29)…. it doesn’t matter… what matters is what we do with it. And the greater our joy in exercising our gift , the greater our opportunity to please God and bless others.