A Little Understanding – More of What Every Floor Plan Needs

I cannot remember what the commercial was actually advertising, not great for the company that commissioned it, but I remember the plot.  Parents measuring their college age child’s bedroom, getting ready to turn it into some sort of spa or game room or something. I can’t remember if they had pretended to be upset as they sent their child off to the next phase of life or began the planning right in front of them, but I do know the room wasn’t about to stay a bedroom for long.

When people buy a house that fits their needs, they have found the perfect house.

When things change, so does the idea of what the perfect house looks like. For most people who have moved more than once, they would rather change the use of a room than pack, move and start again just because the perfect house is no longer perfect. This is just like the way the floor plan of a Christ follower and the collective of Christ followers is supposed to work. We are not called to start again but instead to adapt and adjust as the Spirit provides. The necessity rooms stay the same (fruit of the Spirit) but the remaining rooms (gifts of the Spirit) are repurposed as needed…

What is happening in our life dictates the function for the rooms…

…just as the Holy Spirit dictates, through His gifts, what our floor plan will look like. You wouldn’t bring a baby home from the hospital thinking I wonder if we should keep it inside the house or not. The baby would have an assigned space either converted from another use or originally designed for your new bundle of joy (I hope you will still think of them as a bundle of joy when they are 40 and still living in the same room).

The Spirit has assigned gifts for each of us, uses for each space if you will, some will stay the same, others will change as our lives change. These gifts dictate your part in God’s plan both as individuals and as part of the collective of Christ followers…

In my second to last year of high school, testing was offered…

…to help us choose the career that would best suit our talents and personality. I took the test to see what this survey, created by those with numerous letters after their name, would say my future should look like. I have no idea what the questions were but if I remember correctly most of them came from one of two angles. Either the question asked what you enjoyed doing or it asked what you were good at.

When I was given my test results, I was a little shocked. Somewhere in the top five was architect, no surprise there. In the top three was dancer. Dancer I have no problem with, it’s a part of theatre which I went on to study. It was the suggestion that I would make a great housewife that seemed a little off base. For me to even attempt this I would first require some major surgery and then… who cares, that was not going to be my career anyway!

I looked at a few spiritual gifts tests and found many of the same style questions…

…that were in my career testing. I may put a few noses out of joint but matching people’s likes and abilities to the things Paul listed as gifts of the Spirit amounts to no more than a talent/skills test. We all have talents and skills and most of them can be categorized in such a way that they line up with the writings in Paul’s letters.

If a group of people who adamantly stated they were atheists did a spiritual gifts test (rename it of course) it would still tell them what ministry areas they should be involved in at the local church. I am not sure of any widely accepted doctrine that states the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit happens without placing faith in Jesus Christ…

Through humble prayer we discover God’s will, done God’s way, in God’s time, using God’s chosen resources. This revelation must lead us to do our part. Doing our part requires empowerment in the form of spiritual gifts deemed needed by the Spirit for the calling at hand. This is the process that we need to follow but more often it is the reverse that is taught.

Do a test to figure out the “spiritual gifts” you have (talents would be a better description).

Find a place to use these “spiritual gifts” in your church and other ministry settings…

…All that is accomplished by this backward philosophy based around a talent and skills test is Christ followers and the collective of Christ followers feeling good about themselves because they are doing stuff they like to do.

Never having to step out of their comfort zone because of the belief that God has not gifted them beyond what they are doing, they buy into the lie sold by the snake oil salesman; what we want, and the extras we crave, are really what we need.

What we need is more of God.

Our floor plan is one that seeks and discovers more of God through the indwelling and empowering of His Spirit guiding us to be; loving, joyful, people of peace, who are patience, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled and empowering us beyond what we can be on our own.  

From time to time my blog will include abridged excerpts from my book “Blueprint.” Like any author/blogger, I find it difficult to leave the words I have written in my computer until a publisher can be found. Maybe it’s because someone somewhere needs to read these words now.

For more posts from my book Blueprint find the heading “Categories” on the right side of this page and click on “Blueprint (my book)”