Gift Gap

There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.- 1 Cor. 12:4 (NIV)

The chasm between what we have and what we need could be considered the gift gap. It is the region where you stand somewhere between the way we have done things in the past and the way we know that we need to do things going forward, asking ourselves if we have what it takes to go forward with faith.

We see the gift gap as an issue when church leaders fail to tap into their people and the innate gifts given to their people by the Spirit of God. Unfortunately, the problem occurs more often in ministry than we care to admit. We see it when someone departs from a ministry position unexpectedly and we're left with one of those obvious vacancies. We rush to utilize our earthly resources to fill the void rather than waiting patiently on the Lord to use His eternal resources to send us the right person for the right season. In the end, we find that all that we did to help God along only resulted in reminding us that we should have looked to God in the first place to provide for all that we needed in that season. The gift gap exists today.

Spiritual matters do not seem right in our eyes at times because we are so busy working through earthly issues. We don't recognize that our ministry may not be fruitful or flourishing because of who we have or do not have in place at this time. Our prayers should include those petitions that cover God opening our spiritual eyes to the spiritual warfare that faces us as well as the spiritual needs that we encounter as we serve in ministry. In our service to the Lord, let us continue to open our eyes to newfound opportunities to where our spiritual gifts can be used to meet needs daily.