Building Strength: Using Your God Given Talents

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?” For those who have been faithful and diligent in using and developing their God given talents, Jesus made the following statement, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of the lord.” (Matt. 25:21)

The response for diligence was the same whether God’s gift was five talents or two. However, the Lord’s response for the abandonment of using one’s God given talent was horrific, “cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt 25:30)

In this serious discourse of the so called, “Parable of the talents,” Jesus uses the monetary example of the extremely valuable golden talent. The talent was the heaviest unit of weight in the Hebrew system. It was used to weigh gold (2 Sam. 12:30). While some analysts place the current value in today’s money at approximately four hundred thousand, it commonly weighed about three thousand shekels or the full weight of gold that a man could carry (2 Kings 5:23).

It was so commonly used as money that instead of referring to a talent of gold, people would merely refer to it as a talent. In his parable, Jesus uses the golden talent as a metaphor depicting a dual meaning of our God given natural abilities and strengths. The late psychologist, Donald O. Clifton (the so called father of strengths psychology) working with the Gallup Corporation over the last forty years developed the Clifton Strength Finder Assessment.

This assessment is designed to help people discover and describe their various talents and is discussed in the current best seller, “Strength Finder 2.0,” by Tom Rath. Since two thousand and one, millions of people have participated in Strength Finder over the internet and have learned their top five themes or talents.

Gallup has surveyed more then ten million people world wide on the topic of employee engagement and only one third strongly agree with the statement, “At work, I have the opportunity to do who I do best everyday.” For those who do not get to focus on what they do best (their strengths or talents), the costs are staggering.

Out of a recent poll of one thousand who strongly disagree with the, “what I do best,” statement not one single person was emotionally engaged on the job. In contrast, people who have the opportunity to focus on their talents everyday are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs and more than three times as likely to report an excellent quality of life in general.

These polls and studies, by the Gallup Corp. were done in secular institutions and have demonstrated that continual usage and development of God given talents brings high productivity, success, and contentment on the job. Moreover, it is easy to see the correlation with effectively using our God given talents in God’s Kingdom.

As we engage in the work of God using our talents, and helping others to find and develop theirs, we can together strengthen one another, building God’s Kingdom and giving Him glory, ultimately seeking His words of approval…….”Well done, good and faithful, enter into the joy of the Lord.”

 

Rath, Tom, Strength Finder, 2.0, Gallup Press 2007, New York

Lockyrn, Herbert, Sr., Nelsons Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Money Weights Measures,

Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville 1986

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