Belief.

Day 12.

I talked about Foundation here, hence the featured image for this post.

So this coming Sunday, we’re to kick off a new set of messages centered on John Maxwell’s book, Beyond Talent. We’re going to take on a chapter each month, and though I wasn’t necessarily moved by the book when I was listening to it (probably because I have issues with who recommended it), I’m pretty excited to face these messages as a good challenge.

How timely that we start it all off with the line, ‘Belief Lifts Your Talent’. We just enjoyed the message of Holy Week, and if we were to take anything from these festivities, it’s that what we celebrated was the core and the foundation of any beliefs that we call our own.

We can say a whole lot about our beliefs, as broad as they can be or as specific as we can make them, but we run the risk of not knowing what we believe versus what we say we believe. As a response to pointing out this risk, I say that we run deeper than what we believe, in that we all have a foundation – either by default, or of our own choosing.

Let me say that another way – our words may express our beliefs, and our actions may reveal what we really believe. Our foundation is the core, the base of our beliefs – what we couldn’t say through our words, and what others can see in our actions.

Personally, I call Christ and His finished work the foundation to my entire being. To cut things short, I’ve written on this in the past: That Christ is my Foundation on whom I build my beliefs upon, and my being is maintained and moved out of these beliefs.

For me, this Foundation never changes. Christ is in me, and as I am in Christ. There’s no other Rock I stand upon, no other Foundation for me to build on. Christ is the Foundation for me no matter how things develop for me in this reality, and no matter where my beliefs are directed to.

A belief I build upon the foundation of Christ is my stance on the role of the Holy Spirit and its so-called indwelling in us. I believe everyone who receives Christ automatically receives the Holy Spirit right then and there, without the need for any additional ‘ritual’ of sorts.

I believe that as Christ ascended, He was seated at the right hand of the Father, and so we have ascended, and are consequently seated in heavenly places. Our being ascends into eternity, and consequently heaven descends and fills us in this finite reality.

This belief is the basis of why I say that we, as Christians, have had our reality shifted from what is seen (temporal) to what is unseen (eternal). Whatever we perceive is no longer as impacting as it was before – sex, money, and influence do not allure us like they used to. On the other hand, we see more value in the unseen – relationships, peace of mind, and focus.

The hubris that comes with possession of the finite is placed in check. We can take what we have and lose it in the name of what we place more value towards like, say, other people. Consequently, fear of losing these things does not creep in and sabotage our being as much as it does when our belief was so laced with it.

We see here how my belief was built on the foundation, and how my being is changed by my belief.

This is my perspective of belief, anyway. It’s not belief that we stand on, but we build belief upon what we regard as our foundation.

Now when it comes to talent, I have to give John Maxwell credit, as he set the record straight – Talent can only get you so far, and even then, people are always going to be going after you.

What is talent, anyway? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is something Mr. Maxwell mentioned, something that I also heard Pastor Miles MacPherson say so many years ago – Let me ask you, what’s something that you can say you can do joyfully for an entire day without getting paid? That’s looking to be your God-given talent – unseen until manifested in this finite reality.

For a moment I thought the answer to that question was your passion. Now, to say that the answer is talent is to put things into their place – and in this case, I have cause to say that talent is in the space under passion and above stuff you can do really well; perhaps, the balance between advocacy and skill?

Talent can stand alone or work with other talents you have. In my case, I (kind of) like to sing (blame my choir member parents), and I also enjoy encouraging people. These two talents come together when I used to lead worship. I like to take photos to take a load off, and the process of driving around to hunt for good vantage points all adds to my personal stress relief. And, taking this with my liking towards encouragement, I post on my accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

Without taking a peek at the book, I say that Talents are God-given in that they are part of the entire being that composes of you and me. Talents are characteristics of creation designed by Creator. Talents attribute to our being which distinguish us as unique and dynamic creations.

It must be said that a good number of other people don’t have the same talents as we do, and in this way, we are a step ahead. John Maxwell is good to point out that this ‘lead’ we possess is bound to shrink over time, as more and more people are catching up by way of learning what we already do good naturally.

To this end, I agree with him that it’s not enough to have talent. No, I think that if we are to value the Creator who created us with this talent to begin with, we ought to use our talents to literally multiply, versus hiding our talents in the ground out of fear of losing them.

In order for us to honor the talents we’ve been given, we use them; and we in order for us to use our talents to their full potential, we put them in their proper place.

Again, consider that we build our beliefs upon what we choose as our foundation, and our talents move based on our beliefs.

I need more time on this. The 1000 word goal has been reached but I need to build on it further, and then simplify it for this Sunday.

Or not. Maybe I should just leave it as it is. As usual.