Gift

So I was helping out with the dishes after dinner the other night, and some of the older ladies were commenting on how I'm so amazing for being a guy that knows how to wash dishes. I was a bit shocked at my response.

Normally I would have soaked up that compliment like a sponge and asked for more, but this time I was mildly annoyed by it. I didn't know why I was annoyed until I thought about it more later.

God gave me this picture of two carpenters, one mentor and one mentee. The mentee was tasked with hammering a bunch of nails into the wood, and to complete this task the mentor gave him a fancy hammer. Now, we're not talking normal fancy, we're talking imagination dream world fancy. This hammer was so fancy that all you had to do was hold it next to the nails and they would jump into the wood. Raise your hand if you want one of those in your tool box. :)

Anyways, the mentee was hammering nails like a pro with this new hammer, and someone came up to them and complimented them on their hammering ability. The mentee's immediate response was to point to the mentor. "Don't look at me, it's all because of this gift I was given by my mentor. Go talk to him, he's the one that made this hammer."

That's analogous to me washing the dishes. God gave me a gift to serve others. (I don't know about the others, but here in the thick of God's presence in Romania, all my spiritual gifts are magnified.) Don't come up to me and compliment me on my dish washing ability. Go and praise God for giving me this gift, and for creating it in the first place.

Now that I think about the carpenters some more, I'm reminded that if you have a fancy hammer, you should use it. Don't stick it up on the shelf inside of a fancy display case. That's not why he gave it to him. He gave it to him to be used for hammering. If the mentee never used the hammer then the mentor might as well give the fancy hammer to someone else that will actually use it.

I don't know if the taking away of gifts is scripturally based, but my experience is that the more I use my gifts the stronger they become, and the less I use them, the weaker they become.

On a cuter note, Allison and Austin's kid Elijah likes to shout my name whenever he sees me. Sometimes we'll be eating lunch or dinner on opposite sides of the room, and through the crowd he'll look over at me. "Mike! Mike! Mike!" Of course I have to smile and wave at him. Cutest kid ever.

He's two and can't say full sentences when you talk to him, but he knows lots of individual words.

"Hide" means he wants to play hide and seek.

"Boom" means he likes the sound that kicking the table makes.

"Cards" means he wants to play with the Uno cards that are sitting on the table.

"Oatmeal" means he sees me eating something out of a bowl at breakfast, and he thinks I'm eating oatmeal.

During worship someone said a joke and everyone laughed, and for the next few minutes he'd shout "Funny! Funny! Funny!"