Do you want to see God? Just use His gifts! If you were to read my journal, you would find multiple times when I have asked God to give me what I did not have--a message for his people on Sunday! Please understand, this is not the plea of the lazy student facing a semester exam. Some weeks, despite my best efforts, the sermon just isn't coming!
It is a frightening thing to stand in front of a congregation without a word from God. So in a moment of despair I will write out my lament to the Lord, ask Him to do what I cannot, and then I get back to work!
Time after time Friday's groan gives way to Monday's glory. Turn the page of my journal and you will find the words, "God came through!" For he inevitably does. Somewhere in that process of Bible and books, prayer and reflection, writing and re-writing, God brings a message. Many times it is a "Eureka!" moment, and a holy one at that. I rest in the certainty that I've gone from writing a sermon to delivering a message! This is simply the work of God.
Charles Spurgeon was called "The Prince Of Preachers." No one has ever dropped that tag on me, and I'm okay with that. But I know this much: When I use my spiritual gifts, I see God work. Time after time God comes through!
I feel for the folks who keep God's gifts hidden in the closet, wrapped, boxed, and unopened. They are not only missing something, they are missing SOMEONE. They are missing the joy of seeing God at work through them.
If you want to see God, use your gifts!
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. (Romans 12:3-6 ESV)