The What Question

The What Question…
It is amazing to think that after a couple of months of uncertainty and confusion, everything seems to clear up after a little bit of prayer. Last semester, I had no idea where or how I wanted to give myself to God’s work, all I knew was that I felt that it is what God truly wanted for my life. Through this whole process, I had my Bible and that was helped me so much. Not because it told me what to do and how to do them but because it offered support for me. Many months later, I am now starting to get the idea of where I will serve in a couple of years.
When I first decided that I wanted to follow God’s path for me I was scared and did not realize that it was not going to be as easy as I thought it was going to be. I thought that I would be going for the position that is considered the most prestigious among people, that of a senior pastor of some huge church. That, I believe, was my first mistake. I had put in my head that it was up to me completely to decide what position I would hold. Like most humans, I had chosen the one position in the ministry that would impress my peers and bring me a higher position in life. From the beginning of this journey, I had already started on a bad note. After six weeks of this, I have learned that it is not where I am to go. I might become a senior pastor someday but right now, my ministry passion leads me to children’s ministry.
Now that I know where I will serve, the next logical step is to find out what I will do when I get there. I must answer the “what” question. To answer that question, I used both the Strength Quest and the Spiritual Gift Assessment. On the Strength Quest, my top five strengths are Context, Input, Belief, Relator and Achiever. When I first took it, I did not think much of it. In fact, I thought of it as a joke. Almost two years later I can now see how handy it really is to me in helping me out where I will be in the future. Context; I can look back and think of all the things that I have done in my past and learn from them. Input; I have always wanted to know more and more about how this world works and why things happen, this has lead me here to this university. Belief; my family values is the biggest thing that controls my life because almost everything that I have done is based on what is best for the family. I even have a tattoo on my back with the word “family” in Japanese symbols. That is something I will never regret. Relator; I have always enjoyed one on one relationship with people because of the personal feeling that it brings out. Achiever; I have of course tried to succeed in my goals, whatever they may be at the time.
Faith and Prophecy. According to the Spiritual Gifts Assessment, faith and prophecy are my two main gifts but what do they mean? My faith has always been tested time and time again and there have been long periods of time when I truly believed that I would not be able to have any faith at all. At first, I thought it was going a mistake but now that I think about it, I do believe it. If it were not for my faith then I would have been a lost person and could not have passed the last couple years of my life. I am not going to lie, I had no idea what the paper meant by prophecy. The sheets did not provide a description of the various gifts that it showed. So how was I to know what it meant, let alone know if I really did have it?! After looking at the questions that corresponded with this gift, I realize that even though I am still working on honing this gift, I do posses it. I hope that by using these two gifts wisely, I will be able to teach and help grow all the people that are put under my care. I do not think that it will be that big of a problem since my secondary gifts are mercy and shepherding. Oh yes, I believe I have now answered the “what” question to my ministry journey.
It really is amazing how things do not change, but the things that we already have seem much more valuable now.