What is the Return Policy on Spiritual Gifts?
March 9, 2007


Several years ago, in our Sunday School class, we took a spiritual gifts inventory. There were several pages of questions and none had quick or easy answers. I tried to answer as honestly as possible and anxiously awaited the results. I looked forward to discovering my gift — maybe I would be a great teacher or leader or evangelist who brings many people to Christ. Maybe I would be a servant like Mother Theresa.

The next week we returned to class and received the results of our spiritual gift inventories. I learned that my primary gift was hospitality. Yuck. That sounded silly, trivial and shallow. Having parties for God. I didn’t want hospitality, I wanted teaching, evangelism, mercy — something else — anything else sounded more spiritual than hospitality. In fact, not everyone even agrees that hospitality is in fact a spiritual gift.

At first I considered it a joke at my expense; that I could not possibly have the spiritual depth to have a real gift. But as I learned more about it, I realized that it was not so trivial as it had at first seemed.

I think that I didn’t recognize it as a gift because it has always come easy to me to welcome people into my home and my heart. I don’t care about the condition of my house; we once hosted a Sunday School party with bare sheetrock on the walls because we hadn’t gotten around to painting after stripping wallpaper. I was so excited by the idea of hosting the gathering that I didn’t care what anyone thought of my house.

But I have come to appreciate the deeper meaning of my gift. For the past few years, it has opened the door to relationships with many of my kids’ friends that I would not have known otherwise. Having them at my house gives me opportunities to talk to them, listen to them and interact on a deeper level than just seeing them waving from the carpool line.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. I Corinthians 12:4-6

So I see that it is God’s gift at work in me as I host them in my home, feed them, love them and hear about their joys and their sorrows and the inevitable trials of youth. They have been sent to me to receive what I have been gifted to pass along. I have learned to be grateful for my gift as I am happiest and most fulfilled when I am sharing it.

The same God who gave me the ability to enjoy a group of boisterous teenagers gave Mother Theresa the ability to minister to the poor, Billy Graham the ability to preach and that incredible voice to Art Garfunkel. Many gifts, one Spirit.

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