It Takes Skill

Even if you can’t carry a tune, like me, you can still sing praises to God.

We praise God by doing what he has designed us to do. All of creation does. Trees praise him by leafing out each spring and providing shade in the summer, then becoming colorful in the fall and losing their leaves as the sap drops in winter. Birds praise him by tweeting. The sun and moon praise him by rising and setting.

We praise him with the skill that is uniquely ours. We each have one. A gift that God slowly develops in us the way a piano teacher trains a child prodigy to play his best.

Maybe it is patiently raising active children. Maybe it's writing or painting. Maybe it is extending hospitality to others, or giving grace to the invisible in our society. Perhaps you are a super organizer, a motivator, or an empathizer. You are good with your hands, skilled with mechanical things, or can see inside people and help them see themselves.

Each time we use our individual skills, we glorify the Creator who provides them. True, we can try to claim the glory, but that will eventually lead to our downfall. Even then, God will be glorified when we are redeemed from self-centered sin and brought to repentance.

Never think you have nothing to contribute. Someone somewhere needs your skills. God made you for a purpose. Yield to him and let him bring out the best in you. Then praise him with your skill and your life.

Father God, you have put me on earth at this time for a reason. Whether I am to touch one soul or hundreds, it is up to you alone to determine that, not me. Let me never measure my worth by others’, but by how I use the skill you have given me to your glory. Through your Son, my Savior, I pray. Amen.

Go Deeper — Name one thing that you excel at. How are you using it to advance the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven (Lord's prayer, Matthew 6:9-13)?