12 - 9 - 17 Talent, Interest, and Utility

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“Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give." Mt 10:8

But very few of us take vows of poverty or conduct our work pro-bono. What’s the source of this disconnect? Did Jesus mean this metaphorically?

Perhaps he just meant the clergy? Or perhaps only itinerant preachers and healers, which we don’t typically experience in our daily lives.

I’m trying to wrap my head around it, the way I’m understanding it best is the following.

Just as God has freely given us our talents, we are to freely share them with others. God did not withhold the gifts of intellect and compassion, so we are not to withhold our ability to teach from those that desire to learn. God freely gave gifts of physical ability, which should be used to glorify Him. He freely gave artistic ability, good health, every opportunity we have.

I think this starts to touch on something that’s been a personal philosophy of mine for a while. It stems from this idea, but also the scriptural adage, “to whom much is given much will be demanded” and myriad other statings of what seems to be a core principle.

We are given our gifts for a higher purpose besides our own enjoyment or advantage. They do not belong to us, and thereby it is not under our discretion whether we make use of them. With every gift that comes from God comes the obligation to employ that gift in service of the Kingdom.

Some people find obligation to be stifling rather than motivating but I find this to be an extremely energizing notion. This idea that every day that is given to me is not given to me as we would typically think of a gift; It is more akin to being handed a shovel than a new shirt at the beginning of the day. At first glance I realize how this doesn’t seem quite so generous, the gift of a tool and the obligation of work. But the way I see it the work God gives us, and the gifts he provides as tools, are some of the things I’m most grateful for.

Is it material things that make us happy? Assuredly not. Is it our relationships? Certainly, to an extent. But we can still feel miserable even with great relationships supporting us. I think every person feels the need to have a purpose, a life goal, a mission. Now we could try to find that on our own, ask your atheist friends about their process of discernment (though they likely wouldn’t call it that).

By all accounts, and by personal experience, this is one of the most anxiety ridden and difficult experiences most people will go through. What if there were some clue, some starting points that would point us in the right direction to explore?

I think God was as direct as possible short of a personal vocational apparition for every person who’s ever lived.

He’s given us our talents. From a young age it is obvious to everyone around us that we are better suited for certain things than others. As we grow, in stature and self-awareness, we start being able to observe these differing levels of ability in ourselves.

Note: I have little difficulty seeing a developed talent as God’s gift as well considering how dependent these are upon our environment growing up. For example, I think I have an excellent frame for hockey but as I grew up in a rural area it would have been an enormous inconvenience to try to play.

Naturally, many of us enjoy the things we’re good at for the very reason that we’re good at them. Whether this springs from a competitive urge or a desire to excel personally is debatable and pretty irrelevant to where I’m going.

We have a whole other set of activities, independent from our skills and talents, that we thoroughly and intrinsically enjoy. We just like doing it for the sake of doing it. I like playing piano for the sake of playing piano, or rugby for the sake of rugby, or problem solving and invention for its own sake. Once we intersect the set of activities we find intrinsically rewarding and enjoyable, with those that we have talent in, we really start to narrow down the possibilities for our life’s purpose.

One more factor, which is usually cast in the popular culture as “can-you-make-any-money-doing-that-tho?” is the question of utility. Now my conception is somewhat similar to the popular one but differs in a key way. The popular says that your profession needs to be valuable to society, with that value measured by your wage. I wholeheartedly agree that our profession needs to be valuable, but, perhaps it comes as little surprise, it needs to have value in the context of a Christian society.

I hadn’t thought of this third axis before but as I was writing I realized that being a professional video-gamer would qualify in the first two criteria of skill and interest but intuitively violates my conception of an acceptable vocation.

I think that’s where our purpose should lie. There may be more criteria that I haven’t examined, and I’m sure the ones I did I have understood and explained imperfectly, but I think the intersection of these three concepts is an extremely useful discernment exercise.