God is the giver of good gifts. And it comes as no surprise that we don’t decide what gifts He’s going to give us. It’s simply our job, sorry, our joy to discover what they are and to steward them well. We don’t deserve any of them, but He gives them to us nonetheless. In spite of this fact, how often do we take our gifts for granted and not praise God for them? How often do we stop and marvel at what He’s given us? God has given me some wonderful gifts, and on top of that He keeps revealing new ones.
For those of you who don’t know, or if you may have forgotten, music used to be my passion. All I wanted to be for quite a while was a professional jazz trombonist. However, when God truly saved me during my first year of college and my heart turned toward ministry, I walked away from music and have not really missed it at all. That has taken a sharp turn. Since the race began I have missed music more than I have at any point over the last year and a half.
As wonderful as it is to me that God is restoring this passion within me and showing me how I can use it, what’s more exciting, and is in fact the point of this blog post, is the new gift that He has revealed; painting.
During our time in Thailand I was able to help paint a mural on the side of what would be somewhat of a youth center. It just so happened that the very next month in Malaysia we were asked to paint 5 murals. I had never really painted anything other than a wall or a house before, and to be honest I helped very little with the mural in Thailand and didn’t really know what I was doing. Nevertheless, we went for it and did all 5 murals and they turned out pretty good.
Here are the first two. They were done at a church in a small village about an hour from where we stayed in Kuala Lipis. I did the drawing (except for the wording) and the whole team helped to paint them.
The fruits of the Spirit in Tamil
And John 8:12 "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" also in Tamil.
The next one was done at the center that we taught english at in Kuala Lipis. They gave us the idea, kids of different nationalities reading and learning together and once again I did the drawing and the whole team painted.
(I don't seem to have the picture so I'll add it really soon)
The next two were done at the house we were staying at and it's quite an interesting story. They saw the other murals that we painted and asked us if we would paint some for them. So we did Mickey Mouse in the kids room. This one I only drew and Cassie painted.
For the other they asked if we could do a big flower and I said that I could (or at least I hoped). They wanted me to paint it right next to their shrine, (did I mention that it was a Hindu family we stayed with) and so I got to work. This one I did completely on my own and it took me 3 days.
And it was a great opportunity to minister to the family and leave something behind that would remind them of us. So the entire time that I worked on it I prayed over it and for the family, that they would come to know the Father's love, and that this rose would be a seed and every time they came to their shrine they would see it and it would remind them of us. Sometimes seeds are small like that, and sometimes God gives us skills that we didn't know we had so that we can plant them. I don't know how God will use that seed but that's not for me to know. We simply plant them and pray that God will make them grow. So every time I look back on this photo I thank God not only because He gives wonderful gifts, but because He also gives us situations to use them in. Like I said at the start, God is the giver of good gifts and He's given some to you. Don't doubt your gifts and don't be afraid to explore new ones because if you doubt the gifts, you doubt the giver.
