Two Thoughts on Talents

My mom is giving a lesson on talents this week, and I noticed that I have two talent-related observations on my list of ideas to blog about, so I thought I'd share those thoughts with you tonight.

The first observation is that it's easier for many people to see talents in others than it is to see them in themselves. For whatever reason, we tend to under-appreciate ourselves despite clearly seeing the value in others. Perhaps this is an example of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence. We know that everyone has talents, and we should remember that that includes us. We should accept that we have talents, identify them, thank God for them, and try to develop them.

The second observation I had about talents is that God gave them (or at least some of them) so we could use them to bless others. We all have gifts that we can use to bless the lives of others, and God expects us to use them to bless as many people as we can. Our talents aren't just to bless us, though, of course, they bless our lives, too. We are supposed to use our blessings, including our talents, to enrich the lives of others as well.

Perhaps that's part of the reason we don't like to acknowledge our talents. With each talent comes an obligation to help others. Sometimes, we would rather believe we're talentless than admit that we have more work that we should do. We often believe that our load is already heavy enough. But perhaps our loads would be lighter if we used our talents to bear them together. For example, I can use my physical strength to help others with their physical challenges, and they can use their insight and maturity to help me with my emotional challenges. We can each use our strengths to cover each other's weaknesses, making our challenges that much easier to bear.

God wants us to help each other, and giving us various talents and weaknesses is one of the ways He encourages us to do that. So we should try to help each other recognise our various talents and use them to help each other. We all could use help with some things, and we can all help each other with other things. Let's try to recognize our talents and use them to bear one another's burdens that they may be light.