You Were Not Given Gifts to Sit on Them

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For the longest time, I told myself that if something was meant for me, it would just… happen.

If it was God’s will, it would land in my lap. I wouldn’t have to push for it, promote it, or put myself forward. Staying quiet felt like staying humble. Holding back felt like trusting God.

But I’ve been sitting with something lately, and I need to share it with you.

I have started to wondering if my faith of movement was falling short? Perhaps, it was my timidity dressed up as surrender.

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I have been reading the Acts of the Apostles and I noticed that Paul didn’t wait for the gospel to spread itself.

What strikes me isn’t just his theology. It’s his sheer use of everything he had. There was a time he was going to get flogged and he uses his Roman citizenship, go get him out of that mess.

Then there is another time he uses his education under Gamaliel. His ability to move between worlds, to speak to Jews and Greeks, to write letters that crossed borders and outlasted empires.

Paul didn’t apologise for any of it. He picked up every gift and said, this is for the work.

He wasn’t self-promoting. He was stewarding.

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That is where I see the difference, and I think a lot of us, especially women, have been taught to blur that line until we can’t see it anymore.

We’ve been taught that wanting to grow, wanting to build, wanting to earn, that it’s somehow less godly. That the truly faithful woman waits. That she shrinks.

But Paul didn’t shrink. And God used every single thing he was.

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Here’s what I’ve come to believe is the real injustice.

We look at the world and we say, rightly, that it’s full of injustice.

Why do the vulnerable suffer?

Why are so many people left without?

And those are real questions, worth asking.

But I want to gently put something in front of you.

What if one of the greatest injustices is being given gifts, real, God-given gifts, and never putting them to work?

What if the very people we’re grieving for, the ones we say the world has failed, are some of the same people we were equipped to serve?

You have been given something.

An education, a skill, a way of seeing, a wisdom that took years to build.

That didn’t come to you by accident.

It came through prayer, yours, your parents’, your ancestors’.

It was deposited in you on purpose, for a purpose.

And when you hold it back out of fear, out of false modesty, out of the quiet lie that says who do you think you are, you are withholding provision from people who need what only you can give.

That’s not humility. That’s a loss.

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The Proverbs 31 woman wasn’t performing. She was providing.

We’ve heard so much about her that sometimes she feels like a standard to collapse under rather than a woman to learn from.

But look at her again.

She rises early.

She considers a field and buys it.

She trades.

She earns.

She extends her hands to the poor because she has something in her hands to extend.

She is not waiting to be given permission.

She is moving,

with wisdom,

with intention,

with the people in her household firmly in her heart.

That’s not ambition for its own sake.

That’s stewardship.

And the Holy Spirit was right there in it.

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This is what I’ve been learning about the Holy Spirit lately.

He’s not just for the quiet moments.

He’s not just for the prayer closet or the worship service.

He is the one who equips you to discern when to move and how to move.

He is the one who takes your gifts and says, now.

This way.

For this person.

For this season.

You don’t need to be reckless.

You don’t need to be loud for the sake of it.

But you do need to stop confusing stillness with smallness.

You do need to stop telling yourself that wanting abundance for your family, for your parents, for your children, for your community, that wanting to be in a position to give, is somehow selfish.

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When a woman is resourced, her household is resourced.

When a woman is educated, her community is educated.

This is not a new idea.

Scripture is full of women and men who created abundance and then distributed it, who positioned themselves to provide for those who could not provide for themselves.

You are not over-egging it.

You are not taking something that doesn’t belong to you.

You are providing a service through the gifts God placed in your hands.

And those gifts were never only for you.

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So this is me, giving myself, and you, a little push.

Stop waiting for it to land. Stop shrinking back and calling it trust.

Tap into the Holy Spirit, not to make yourself feel valid, but to be guided into the fullness of what you were made for.

The people in your life who need you, your children, your parents, your brother, your church, your community, they need you resourced.

They need you moving.

What was placed in your hands was placed there for a reason.

It’s time to use it.

𝒴𝓋𝑜𝓃𝓃𝑒 x

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