The Gift in You Has Somewhere to Go

There is a story about a marble statue of Jesus that stood in the courtyard of a small church in France. His hands were stretched out toward the village.

During the war, a bomb exploded nearby and shattered the statue. When the fighting ended, the villagers gathered the pieces and put it back together. They found almost everything.

But they could not find the hands.

Some wanted to replace the statue. What good was a statue of Jesus without hands?

Then someone placed a plaque beneath it:

“I have no hands but your hands.”

That line has stayed with me.

Not because Jesus is powerless without us. He is not. But He has chosen to make His love visible through His body, the Church. He reaches people through hands that serve, voices that encourage, hearts that notice pain, minds that teach truth, and leaders who help the whole crew move in the same direction.

Which means spiritual gifts are not mainly about discovering something interesting about ourselves.

They are about becoming available to God for the sake of somebody else.

Every believer has been given something

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:7 (ESV):

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

There are three truths packed into that one sentence.

To each. Every believer has been given something.

The manifestation of the Spirit. The gift comes from God. We did not earn it, audition for it, or make ourselves worthy of it.

For the common good. The gift was never meant to stop with us.

That last part changes the question. We usually ask, “What is my gift?” Paul pushes us further: “Who is this gift meant to help?”

Your gift is not a trophy that proves you are important. It is a tool placed in your hands so the body of Christ can do what Jesus asked it to do.

Your gift has a shape

Imagine a group of people gathered around a table. Someone carries in the dessert, trips, and drops the whole thing on the floor.

One person immediately says, “Let me help you clean it up.” Service.

Another says, “Don't feel bad. That could have happened to anybody.” Mercy.

Someone retells why the plate tipped and how to prevent it from happening again. Teaching.

Someone starts assigning the mop, the towels, and the replacement dessert. Leadership.

Another offers to buy a new one. Giving.

One dropped dessert. Several different responses.

Nobody had to tell them. What moved them simply came out.

That is often how our gifts first become visible. What need do you notice before anyone points it out? What problem do you start solving? What burden keeps pulling at you? What do you do almost instinctively when something needs to be done?

We often miss our gift because it feels ordinary to us. We assume everybody sees what we see. They do not. The thing you cannot help noticing may be one of the ways God intends to help the people around you.

A gift can be right and still do damage

But noticing our gift is not enough.

The person who explains why the dessert fell may be completely correct and still embarrass the person kneeling in the whipped cream. The leader may get the floor cleaned and leave that person feeling like one more problem to manage.

The gift is real. The harm is real too.

That is why Paul places 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter about love, directly between two chapters about spiritual gifts. He did not interrupt his teaching to give us something nice to read at weddings. He put love in the center because a gift without love becomes noise.

Love does not make the gift less powerful. Love makes the gift safe enough to build with.

This is where I have to examine my own role as a pastor. It is easy to measure a week by what I completed. Did I prepare the message? Did I solve the problem? Did I keep everything moving?

But those questions can hide a harder one: Did I equip anybody else?

Am I doing ministry, or am I making room for the saints to do the work of ministry? Have I confused being needed with being faithful? Am I holding the wheel so tightly that nobody else learns to steer?

I can equip people. I cannot develop someone who never places their gift in the hands of a community. And I cannot call a church healthy simply because a few people have become very good at doing everything.

The whole crew matters.

Your gift needs somewhere to go

Proverbs 11:26 describes a man who has grain stored in his barn while the people around him are hungry. He owns the grain. Nobody accuses him of stealing it. But he has what people need, and he keeps it in storage.

You have grain in the barn.

Something in you can strengthen somebody, organize something, tell the truth, meet a need, relieve a burden, point the way forward, or help a hurting person feel less alone.

Potential alone will not feed anyone. A gift develops when we place it somewhere, let mature people shape it, and use it often enough to grow.

So begin with four questions:

1. What do I notice? Pay attention to the needs that consistently get your attention.

2. What comes out of me? Look at how you respond when nobody assigns you a role.

3. Who can help me develop it? Gifts grow through discipleship, practice, correction, and love.

4. Where can it serve? Find a real person, team, or need—not someday, but now.

You do not need a platform. You need a place.

Because when your gift stays undeveloped, you are not the only one who loses. Somebody goes without the help God intended to bring through you.

The world still needs the hands of Jesus.

And the gift in you has somewhere to go.

If this is something you are working through, you can reach me at leadpastor@aaogchurch.com.