This feels weird!

Yesterday started the beginning of our fall revival services at our church. Since we have a visiting pastor to bring the message to the congregation I had the day off from preaching. With the opportunity to sit in the pews and be fed rather than doing the feeding on this particular Sunday I took the opportunity to sit with my beautiful wife during the service. I sat down on the end of the pew and put my arm around her as we took in the revival message. After I sat there for a few moments my wife leaned over and told me that it felt weird for me to be sitting with her in church. For just over 2 years now my wife has endured close to 100 church services without me sitting beside her. There is the occasional special service where I'm not required to preach and I get to sit with my family but for the most part it is a rarity. So for my wife who is used to being a loner during our worship services it did feel weird to have me sitting beside her.

As I reflected on my wife's comment, without trying to be offended, I realized there was a truth in the comment beyond the obvious. With me sitting in the pews with my family during a worship service it meant that I was not exercising the spiritual gifts God has given to me. The spiritual gifts God has given to me are, among others, those of preaching and teaching. For me to not be exercising those gifts during a service meant that I had to be doing something other than what God designed me to be doing and that ought to feel weird.

When we realize what spiritual gifts God has gifted us with, then we should work to put those gifts into practice in the church. Once we do we find a type of peace that only results from knowing that we are doing what God designed us to do. When we get away from using those gifts then we ought to feel weird and uncomfortable. It ought to bother us that we aren't using the spiritual gifts God has given to us. We ought to be so discontent that we won't be able to stand it until we start exercising our gifts again.

Whatever spiritual gift(s) God has given to you, and every believer has been given at least one, that gift needs to be discovered by you. Once you find it put it into practice and don't let up. Because once you find fulfillment in using your spiritual gifts, you will only find it to feel weird when you don't.


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