All across campus there are 18-22 year old guys who own gaming systems. Most of them received their first system sometime between age 8-14. The problem is, many of them play perpetually, literally all the time, oblivious to a much larger world around them.
Many of these guys have never grown up into the gift they received. They play their gaming at age 20 in the same ways that they did at age 14.
All of us have things like this in our lives. All of us have talents, abilities, gifts that we operate in at some frequency (ranging from hourly to just annually) that we have never grown up into.
In some cases, this isn't that big a deal. I never had a gaming system, so I never developed the eye-hand coordination. The guys love it when I play Halo, I'm an easy target.
But when it comes to our primary areas of life--emotional intelligence, our spiritual gifts that are given to us to bless the body of Christ, our intellect, and particularly the strengths and abilities that we build our lives around--remaining stunted in our growth isn't just inconvenient. It's disastrous.
C.S. Lewis suggests that Jesus is the personalizing person. That is, as we look to Jesus, follow him and obey him, we become not freaks but who we were actually intended to be. We become more fully human, more alive.
But this doesn't happen accidentally. And so we must be deliberate about asking the Lord to help us to grow up into the gifts he's given us--the spiritual gifts, the natural talents and abilities...all of it.
If we don't do this, we remain stunted in our gifts. They become a curse to those around us rather than the blessing they were intended to be. But if we engage with the Lord to grow up into the gifts he's given to us, they become mighty and powerful agents of blessing and joy.
And if anyone can give me some pointers for how to improve my Halo, Guitar Hero, or Smash game, I'm all ears.
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