Christian society treats Spiritual gifts as part of your emotional disposition and talks like you are given one or two gifts at salvation and you spend the rest of your Christian life cultivating them. We have surveys that identify your gift that are more like a personality and interest survey. You are spiritually born with all the spiritual aspects of God and your “self” covers it up. It is God who decides what gift will be given to the church and by who, when I say church I mean the greater Christian community. This will be your gift for what ever length of time He chooses. The scriptures talk about spiritual gifts because Christians looked at them as personal traits not the Lords work through them. Christians saw one trait as better then another and not as they should the Lord working through them. The issue we have today is that now that our culture has defined the gifts our mind will imitate them. The mind does such a good job that it even fools itself. When I was in collage I had developed very strong empathy skills and could fill the pain of those around me. I could in a short amount of time make them comfortable with sharing there pain with me. I thought this was a gift form God. I could tell who was going through pain and share in there pain. It was wonderful at first but after the person thought about what they had shared they would distance themselves from me. They were not ready to talk about there problems. It was not long before I realized that this was a trait that I had developed and not from God. I had to set it down and move on, just as I have traits that I cultivate for work, but set aside when I’m seeking the Lord’s work. Spiritual gifts are not like traits that we have to work on or be trained in, but a spiritual gift from God if for some reason it is lacking then it is our relationship with God that is at fault. You see a spiritual gift is spiritual, so if you wish to be a better tool you work on your spiritual awareness and not on the gift. Focus on the gift and that empowers you not the spirit. You will find yourself moving from God not to Him.
We have lost our Spiritual perspective as it relates to gifts. It has become a way of personal empowerment. Once we have found what we think is our gift we act like anything we do with this trait is the working of the Lord. This is taking control of your own life. We need to seek to deepen our relationship with Christ and rejoice when God has us actively knowingly participate in His will. Don’t focus on labeling or wish He was using you as someone else. It is one of the biggest blessings to not only be saved but see that God is using us in the fulfillment of His purpose. Don’t take control by labeling your abilities as from Christ and proclaiming your use of this ability the works of the Lord. You can be trained on how to better use an ability but not a gift. You can only develop the relationship. Don’t push your abilities on the Lord, but seek and wait. It is His choice to make the working of His purpose a mystery. So don’t be frustrated with the mystery, but be thankful when He shows your actions as part of His purpose.