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This
month we take a look at our gifts and, especially,
our often apparent lack of them. Aaron White
asks: How do we know what our Spiritual Gifts
are and how we should use them? Can computers
help?
One of the best things about the Internet
is that you can find all kinds of online quizzes
and questionnaires that will help you to know
who you really are. There are literally thousands
of these invaluable tests out there in cyberspace,
and I have taken many of them.
For instance, I learned by answering a number
of online questions that the religion best
suited to my personality and beliefs is “Liberal
Quaker.” I have not been to any Quaker
meetings, let alone “liberal”
ones, but I’m sure they are wonderful,
and wonderfully suited to me. How could they
not be? The Internet says it, so it must be
true.
I have also discovered other amazing things
about myself online, such as how exciting
and fulfilling my life is on a scale of 1-10;
what my perfect mate would look and smell
like; and what Star Wars character I would
be, if I were a Star Wars character (Princess
Leia, apparently. This worries me.)
You can also take a test online to determine
your spiritual gifts. You answer something
like 80 questions, detailing your experiences,
hopes, and abilities. Then the computer spits
out the results, and tells you that based
on your responses, you are destined for a
life of prophecy, service, martyrdom, or celibacy,
etc… These types of tests used to be
done by hand, and you can still get them that
way, but the computer is so much more efficient.
Now, I know I shouldn’t ever doubt the
accuracy of these results, but I confess to
wondering sometimes if they aren’t just
a complete waste of time. I have taken these
types of questionnaires several times during
my life, and each time I come away with a
different gift mix. Of course, God could be
giving me spiritual gifts at different moments
for different tasks. But it is also possible
that I have learned to answer the questions
in such a way that I come up with the gifts
I want to have, or think I ought to have.
I don’t even do this consciously. I
know in my mind the kind of person I would
like to be, the kind of talents and abilities
I would like to be known for having, and this
necessarily skews the test results. I can’t
be completely objective about myself. Nobody
can. But the tests really only work if you
are being utterly honest, with no bias about
yourself.
I’m also aware that the Spiritual Gifts
Questionnaires do not claim to provide any
conclusive answers, and that they are only
designed as tools to help you find out how
God has gifted you.
So they can be useful, I suppose. But they
are not useful on their own. An impersonal
test can never let you know who you are. And
neither can you. We are built for community,
for blessing and being blessed, for challenging
and being challenged, for forgiving and being
forgiven. God set us up in such a way that
we are to experience Him, to relate to Him,
communally. God is Our Father, not just My
Father.
So the gifts and abilities our Father gives
us are for the building up of the community
of the saints. They are not for our own personal
benefit. Therefore, these gifts must be discovered
in community. How do you best serve and bless
your community? Which role do you fill? What
do people around you who know you, love you,
forgive you and are forgiven by you say about
your giftings? Community will help you discover
your gifts, and should help you to grow in
the exercise of them as well.
Of course, the opinion of your community is
not without its faults. It will be biased,
and mistakes have certainly been made by churches
concerning people’s gifts and abilities.
Unhealthy communities will also be more concerned
with suppressing people’s gifts than
with allowing them to grow. But the input
of your community – the people who will
be most effected by your gifts – is
still essential if you want to know how God
has gifted you.
The other essential input (and it seems strange
to have waited this long to mention it) comes
from God. We are talking about Spiritual Gifts
after all; they come exclusively from God,
and they are given to enable us to fulfill
His purposes on earth. So make the matter
of your gifts an issue of prayer. Ask God
about it. How has He specifically gifted you?
For what purpose? How can you practice, especially
if your gift is martyrdom or celibacy?
Remember, these gifts are good, they come
from God, He wants you to have them and use
them to bless those around you. That is how
He wants His community to function. So it’s
not like He’s wanting to keep them a
big secret from you, like He won’t tell
you and you have to sleuth it out by taking
several online questionnaires. You don’t
need personality profiles to tell you who
you are. Let the One who created you do that,
and live out that personality and those gifts
in the freedom and fullness of community as
He intended.
But I am going to try the Star Wars test again.
I really want to be Chewbacca.
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