What is your favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving? My family has their favorites and the week before Thanksgiving they make their requests, as if I’ve forgotten from one year to the next. When we have the opportunity to gather with my extended family for Thanksgiving, which isn’t often, we all prepare some of our family’s favorites to share at the meal. It is a lot of fun, because we all like different things.
When I taught elementary school, we would have an unusual feast to celebrate Thanksgiving. We would have a pumpkin pancake feast with bacon, sausage, juice, and fruit ambrosia we would make from the fruits the children would bring that day. It was a great way to allow everyone to participate in providing our Thanksgiving meal.
As a member of the Body of Christ, we all have different gifts we can bring to the family of God to share. Romans 12:6a says “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.” We don’t all get the same thing, but all of our gifts come from the same source, the Holy Spirit [1 Corinthians 12:4]. If everyone brought sweet potato casserole to your Thanksgiving feast, think of how boring it would be to eat that meal. You’d get sick of sweet potato casserole. God gave us all different gifts for a reason…they are needed. Whatever gift God has given you is a necessary gift for the Body of Christ. The Spiritual gifts are given to build up the church [1 Corinthians 14:12]. We need one another for the church to function as God designed it to function.
If you don’t know what your spiritual gift is, ask the Lord what He has gifted you with or ask a close friend. Typically, your friends can identify your gifts easier than you can. One of my dearest friends used to say she didn’t know what her gift was, but she was constantly encouraging others in anything they attempted to do. I was able to clearly see the gift of encouragement in her even though she couldn’t see it in herself.
Don’t waste what has been given to you. Use it and allow it to bless others. You’ll be blessed in the process. Happy Thanksgiving!