Teaching the Hands That Heal course in MayHad a very thought-provoking discussion last night, with someone who said she has been digesting and processing this information for the last couple of years. We all have natural gifts and skills, whether those be administration, teaching, leadership, organization, creativity, encouragement, hospitality, etc. However, motivation also plays a role in how we perform our jobs or tasks.
Everything we do, for a job, ministry, or whatever, falls into one of four categories:
1. Gifted & skilled, with high motivation
2. Not gifted or skilled, but with high motivation
3. Gifted & skilled, with low motivation
4. Not gifted or skilled, no motivation
I have always thought I had the gift of administration. I do it very well, and have usually found myself in these roles with work and ministry. Yet, I hate it. I have found satisfaction in it when helping with a missions organization training, or church ministries. Yet after awhile I would find myself waiting until the last minute to get things done or not doing the best I could do, after my initial motivation waned (and this was kind of alarming, as I had always thought it was my gifting). Someone years ago told me I was "despising" my gift, so I bucked up and kept doing it.
Last night I realized that this falls into the 2nd category for me: administration is not necessarily a natural gift, but I do it very well, as well as someone gifted in it, when I am motivated for the cause (missions, ministry, etc). I want it done well, I can even get satisfaction from seeing it done well, so if it's necessary, I'll do it.
Ideally most of our roles should fall into the first category, gifted/skilled and highly motivated. Not all of them, since life doesn't work like that. It is when most of our roles fall into this second category that we get burned out. Category #2 often comes with high stress and high cost. There are some things we all have to do that we are neither gifted in or have motivation for (#4), which can sometimes have disastrous results - my friend did the bookkeeping for her ministry organization and somehow "lost" $1600. Oops. She hated bookkeeping, wasn't good at it, wasn't motivated, and ended up not occupying that role for long. :) But I wonder how many people get to find themselves operating largely in this first category on a regular basis?
It is worth it for me to think about some of the roles I assume here, and maybe some I have filled in the past, and put each of them into a category, as I figure out where life is leading. Plus I love this kind of stuff, and love helping others figure it out too. :) I've had many many thoughts this week about future roles, things corresponding with my life's passions, and excited to see where it all goes...
5 comments:
I really appreciate your distinction between giftings and motivations...it makes total sense. I have given up roles that people have sworn that I was so great at -- but, in reality I was doing those roles in the not gifted, highly motivated and it was SOOOO tiring, all-consuming, and drained the life out of me. But, because I was motivated, it appeared that I was truly gifted in that area...when, in actuality I was just motivated.
Thanks for sharing those distinctions -- it's been fun to use them to look at my work and service both as a career and in volunteer roles.
Thanks for those thoughts! I have thought a lot about Work lately (past few years) too--and enjoyed an essay by Dorothy Sayers on Work very much a while ago. You might like it too.
Something i've wondered though is if the tension between the already-not-yet spills over into Work too. I mean, in the perfect world, God would have me doing something that i was gifted in and motivated in. And sometimes not motivated, to teach me perserverance. But Work wouldn't be a chore, it would be a delight. And i wonder, if part of the curse--well, it IS part of the curse--is that Work is a chore down here. And that we won't be fully happy with Work until Heaven.
(And by Work, i mean more than doing something to earn a paycheck.) ;-)
That is a really interesting thought, April...I think you're right about the already-not-yet stuff, but I have also met people who have found those things that they feel they were "made" to do. I have had fleeting moments of that in my life, but haven't quite found that Work yet. Probably most never do...but I am sure it can exist here. Most probably never even identify what that could be for themselves, and then finding a job or ministry that actually utilizes that is a completely different story!
Meant to comment on this days ago, but I just wanted to say that I think every Christian who has ever been in any form of ministry needs to hear this. And that whole bit about "despising" your gift...well-meaning but ignorant Christians can do SO much damage sometimes.
Post a Comment