In this season, we spend a lot of time congratulating others on their graduations, or their upcoming jobs or their new marriages. That’s all lovely, but there are times when, while genuinely glad for others, we feel a bit mired in our daily muck, wondering if there is anything new and exciting in store for us, or whether the favors of the Lord have perhaps gone exhausted, our own prospects being over and done.
Such thoughts are not unnatural or blameworthy at all, but for those of us who are not at this moment standing on the precipice of a clear new beginning, I would nevertheless like to offer an encouraging word in season (Prv 15:23), one that starts with a truth too rarely considered: We, all of us, are actually standing at new thresholds all the time if we’re permitting ourselves to dream, and to believe in God’s promises.
I recall being a little kid and declaring to my family that I wanted to be a writer, a notion at which they (being a dysfunctional and depressed bunch of Scots/Irish/German/Italians) immediately jeered. When I said it again as a teen, the eyes rolled, the snark came once more along with cruel denigrations that I was unworthy of the dream, regardless of my sense of calling.
My parents were brilliant, creative and emotionally wrecked people, partly because social and economic realities had never permitted them to study, or follow their strengths, or ever think a dream could come true. Both raised in near-poverty, their reality was work, paycheck to paycheck. We children were told that aspirations were pointless: Dreams were stupid, so put them away. The girls were reminded that we could do well as waitresses until we married, so higher education would be a pointless waste.
“What becomes of a dream deferred?” asked Langston Hughes — such a poignant question. When I look back on my parents, whose own longings to serve their considerable talents went unanswered, I see how dreams deferred left them warped, bitterly frustrated, ungenerous and negative, ultimately self-destructive.
Now, some might say that I was lucky. I got to have my dream — I got to make my living by writing and editing, and (best of all) being in a position to help other really talented people get their start, or get seen and read. That has been my great privilege.
But it wasn’t luck. I am convinced that the gifts we possess, God-given and therefore never revoked (Rom 11:29), cannot be suppressed — no matter how they are jeered at or discouraged, no matter how devoutly the world tries to deny or suppress them, no matter how long we have neglected them — if only we give God the opening to permit them to flourish.
We do that by simply taking up the pen (or the paintbrush, or the ukulele, or the camera or the saxophone) and pursuing that sense of calling, putting ourselves forth.
Putting your gift out there, even in the smallest way (there are so many platforms, so many ways) is a means of demonstrating to God that you are steadfast in gratitude, that you’re acknowledging the gift and giving it back to him, even as you relish the moments where the divine spark you’ve been given, set loose, joins itself to the great Flame that is the Creator.
God is ever faithful, and whatever small thing you bring out of your gift (remember, you’re gifting it back) he will enlarge, perhaps not in a world-changing way, perhaps not to a global audience.
Yet he will fit your work to your needs and the world’s (and most importantly, his) and that fit will be enough. It will bring massive joy. It will set you on your knees saying, “Thank you, thank you that I got to do this. It’s yours, but you shared it with me. Yours it remains.”
Pick up your pen, your camera, your paintbrush. Don’t believe you’re not worth your calling; don’t permit your dream to be deferred; don’t give up on a gift just because the world has made things difficult, or seems to be telling you “no.”
Reject “no.” Nothing grows in “no.”
Whatever your circumstance, your gifts are still there, given to you by a God who says “yes” — whose very “yes” began all of creation, which is to this day still expanding, still enlarging.
So it is with your gift. Give it back to God, gratefully, trustingly and watch it grow beyond anything you ever thought.
The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies not over and done; every morning they are renewed, so great is his faithfulness (Lam 3:22-23).
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