Finding Your Talent

1 Peter 4:10 (NIV)

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully, administering God's grace in its various forms".

I admire Charlie Daniels. For years I've enjoyed his music. He has a great fiddle-playing talent as demonstrated in the well-known "The Devil Went Down To Georgia". He has also gained notoriety for his down-home, good-old-boy attitude. In recent years he has become a symbol of conservative country values.

Yes, I liked him even before he became a conservative, political writer.

I have often used Charlies Daniels postings on my Griping, Whining blog "Burning Zeal". I've used his words because he says what I believe but don't have the ability to write them down as he does. In his down-home, conservative way, he can get his point across!

My Burning Zeal writing partner, Crabby Old Man, sent me Charlie's most recent post from his "Soapbox" website. This post is so out of the norm for Daniel's that I felt like it needed to be posted in "For Love of Home".

Are you still looking for a talent in your life? I've been so guilty of saying "When God passed out the talents, he skipped me!" That's not true. I may not have a great musical talent, or art talent, or some other very noticable, outstanding talent such is observed by society; but I do have a talent. I know I do. I've just got to decide exactly what it is!

I hope you enjoy the following post of Charlie Daniels. And, as you read, contemplate on what your talent may be.

Unique

"When you look at identical twins sometimes it's amazing how alike they look. It's even hard to tell one from the other. But as they grow older their individual tastes and talents tend to lead them in different directions, different professions, different preferences in mates and so on.

It is my firm conviction that The Creator never made two people exactly alike. We're all different in one way or another, no matter how deeply our similarities run.

Everybody has that little difference that makes them unique.

Too often we confuse the word talent with the ability to entertain, play a musical instrument, write or paint or sculpt.

Actually, talent is one of the biggest words in the English language, a three hundred and sixty degree word covering a multitude of aptitudes and capabilities.

For instance, my daddy could walk up to a standing tree in the woods and tell you what length telephone pole or bridge piling it would make or how many board feet of lumber was in it.

Lots of people had the skill to do something similar but daddy had a downright talent for it.

We think about a doctor who does delicate operations as having a skill for it and, he has, but did you ever stop and think that only a minute percentage of mankind has the ability and the nerve to hold the life of a human beingin their hands for hours at a time. It's a God given talent.

The guys in our road crew have a talent for transforming a bare expanse of wood into a stage, complete with sound and lights and instruments and transforming it back into a flat expanse of wood when the show is over.The guys who drive the vehicles have a talent for sitting behind the wheel of a bus or truck and driving hundreds of miles night after night with their human cargo fast asleep in the back, confident in the fact that the drivers are going to get them where they're going when they're supposed to be there. That's talent.

The people who work in our office have a talent for taking an offer from a concert promoter and turning it into a full blown show, arranging travel schedules, hotels, bus and truck parking and publicity. That's a talent.

The guys who work at Twin Pines Ranch all have an eye for horses and cattle. While I can hardly tell one cow from another, they can pick one out of the whole herd, tell you how many years in a row she has had a calf, how old she is, and how productive the bull standing next to her is. That's a talent.

Did you know you have a talent? You may not play an instrument or transform a piece of canvas into a work of art but you have a talent nevertheless. It may be taking care of the indigent, comforting a teething baby or knowing just when to set the hook when a big largemouth bass is nibbling your bait.It may be just being able to be at the right place at the right time with a kind word or a big hug. Maybe you can bake the best cherry pie in town or plow the straightest furrow in the county. Not everybody can. It's a talent.

Did you ever get on a big jet plane and look in the cockpit at all those instruments and wonder how in the world those two guys sitting there would ever be able to adjust all those thingamajigs, get that humongous piece of metal in the air and get you where you're going? I could never do that.

Don't ever let anybody tell you that you're worthless or that you can't do anything right. Follow your dream until you find the thing that you can do right, the one you can do better than most people. That's your talent.

You're a child of a God who loves you. Go find the talent He gave you and be happy."

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

June 18, 2007