Dazed

Maybe I am having a senior moment, but in a weird sort of way, I don't have a clue what you mean and I think it is because you are compartmentalizing certain things by referring to them as spiritual gifts. Belief and life are not separated in my head that way. Just like I don't do the A, B,C thing - to me life is God.

I know what I feel I was always meant to do but I don't feel that it leads to evangelisation or prophecy or anything like that. And we're told to love our neighbour as our selves but while some people may have more of a gift for it than others, it doesn't exclude people from loving their neighbour as themselves just because it's harder for them then those that are naturally more empathetic.

I think the problem is with the word "gift" (for me). It's like some people can draw and some people can barely draw a straight line and that happens among Christians and non-Christians alike, so I don't understand how a spiritual context might be applied to that.

For example, should Christians who can draw, draw only Christian things/themes? And if you're not including gifts such as artistry, but referring to things such as evangelisation and prophecy and church leadership, then I am ungifted. I have no calling to those things at all in the sense that God is not compartmentalized in my mind that way.

For example, if "Bob" comes to me with a problem, I am not thinking "how can I save Bob? How can I make a Christian point?" I am empathizing with Bob's problem. Maybe "Bob" is hungry. I feed "Bob." That's just what I do. I don't think to myself that I am feeding Bob in Jesus' name or exercising a spiritual gift. I'm not thinking necessarily, specifically about God at all but because I love Jesus, by definition, everything I do and say is about Jesus in a certain way. It's not compartmentalized in my head though.

Which doesn't mean that the conversation might not turn to God because Bob might say "How could God let this happen to me?" and so a conversation about how we see God might ensue.

To me, your question is like asking me what I do specifically as a human woman. Since I have never been anything other than a human woman, there is nothing that I have to separate it from. If you see what I mean.

I have people in and out of my life as well, very often people who are have difficult lives. I listen where I think I ought to listen, offer hope where I think I ought to offer hope, etc. but I'm having trouble placing that in the context you place it into. I don't feel that this is a calling but rather something that everyone does or should do. In other words, I don't think it is odd or somehow special that anyone does this - to me it is odd when people don't do that, Christian or non-Christian.

I've quoted the verse before (paraphrasing here) "What does the Lord require of you but to walk humbly before God, and to love justice..." To me that is "working for God." But I don't know that I would call it a gift. As someone once said, all that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to stay silent.

Anyway, I'm a little lost here and I'm not sure why...

Layla