Many years ago while hanging out with friends I met a very interesting Christian. He told me he had the spiritual gift of understanding fear. My immediate reaction was to ask about the other super powers he had, but I held my tongue and asked him to describe this gift. He explained that he had the ability to sense things that were dangerous and should be feared or avoided in the Christian’s life.
“Very unique gift”, I stated.
I could have ignored this whole interaction, yet I pursued and explained that I had not heard of anyone else with this gift. He proclaimed that it was real and attempted to describe how the spiritual power worked.
God used this unusual interaction to spur me on to study the gifts in the church. Although there is no exhaustive or complete listing of gifts in the Bible, I poured over the scripture and read scholars on the subject, and became aware of many exciting and powerful things God gifts His people with.
One of the more powerful examples of gifts comes from 2 Timothy 1:7 which states that God did not give a spirit of fear; but of power, of love, and good judgment. The Bible provides many examples of Christ filling people with abilities that go beyond themselves, thank God he does. These gifts are particularly comforting and empowering during trying times like Timothy was in, and we are currently experiencing.
What I especially like about this passage is that Paul describes three distinct things God’s Spirit provides for the Christian:
1. The Spirit provides us with power. This power helps us overcome obstacles from our broken world, our sinful tendencies and our enemy.
2. The Spirit provides the ability to emotionally connect with others, described as love. Although love can be faked - and can be robotic - I believe this passage reminds us that God’s emotive connections are fresh and charged by the power of the Holy Spirit. How else can someone love and even die for people who hate him – as Jesus did?
3. The Spirit provides sound judgment, or the ability to calmly reason through a problem. God has provided us with the ability to think clearly despite confusion and chaos found in our world.
Although I still wonder about the special gift described by my spirited friend, I know that God does empower us to do great things. I have also realized that if God can make a donkey talk why not provide a special spiritual gift just for us, to meet a particular need at a particular time.
What do you think?
