“As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” 1 Peter 4:10 (ESV)
I just love old guitars! A bunch of years back we were singing in a really remote fly-in community, and I couldn’t believe what I saw hanging on a friend’s back wall. It was a 1956 Gibson ES125—I was just wowed by this half-century-old guitar. I was even more speechless when my friend gifted it to me!
Two weeks later, I was getting the old Gibson ready to go to work— new strings, new strap, new case—getting ready for that first gig! I remember my disappointment when I couldn’t get any good sound out
of it. It wouldn’t stay in tune and the semi-ancient wood didn’t have that resonance I was expecting. I never even got it to sound average.
Another guitar collector explained the problem to me. For 35 years the ES125 had hung on the wall . . . unplayed. To sound good, a guitar has to be played! The music gets into the wood. This awesome beauty had potential that was never realized.
Many folks can identify with that guitar. They may be gifted; they may have tons of potential; they may look like the next Lebron or Gretzky; they may sound like the next John Fogarty, but they never do anything with what they’ve been given. They just sit on it. The potential is there, but they’re finding some excuse to just waste it.
In Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the Bible talks about how God entrusts us with spiritual gifts. These are what we’re given to serve our Creator with, and to become what He designed us to be. We choose what we do with what we’ve been given. We can honor Jesus with our gift or just waste it.
That old guitar could have made beautiful music, but it never did. You too have giftedness and potential. What are you doing with it?
– Kene Jackson
Council Fire is a collaboration with Intertribal Life Ministries and Native Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
The Council Fire Daily Devotional Book Set is available on the Intertribal Life Ministries website.
Learn more about Council Fire at councilfire365.org