To be honest this hasn’t really been something that I have put much of any thought into. The first time I ever heard of spiritual gifts was during our Youth Alpha retreat in high school. Teresa briefly touched on the subject when we were talking about the Holy Spirit and the power that he held. I remember listening to the list of gifts and thinking to myself, Paul you don’t have any of those, and that was fine with me. Since then I can honestly say that it has never crossed my mind again.

Today I brought my bible to design class because I knew I’d have about a half an hour while my primer set up and I could put the coat on the final side of my cube. When I sat down and opened up the Book I was flipping through and found my nametag from TCX (or maybe it was fall retreat, can’t remember) in between some pages. The first header I read was about Spiritual Gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1) and started reading. In all honesty I was freaking out. “But everyone who prophesies speaks to men for their strengthening, encouragement and comfort” (1 Corinthians 14:3). Looking back on what I’ve been through before this makes all to much sense. Time and time again I’ve known things are going to happen before they do, I’ve had this ability to be there for people and helping them without knowing much of anything about them or their situation.

So now that I’ve been rambling here for the past paragraph I guess I’ll get to my point. I can no longer ignore what I know to be coming, for me and for others. I understand enough of where God needs me to be to know how to get there. While it’s comforting it is also a burden as well, it’s difficult to understand where I’m being led while not being able to see what will come of it. It’s hard for me to be able to tell so much about those around me but not be able to about myself. It’s a blessing to understand all this is through the grace of God. I only hope that I can learn to listen better.

If anyone reading this understands or has something similar going on please let me know.

Take care with God blessing your heart,
~paul

I’m also going to be downtown Minneapolis this weekend to Kickoff the summer project in Toulouse, France!! Heading down there with a bunch of the guys/gals going to brazil, I’m really looking forward to meeting the rest of the Toulouse team (I already know two of them through friends here, joy’s sister Sarah and britta’s old discipler Sherri). Thank you so much for all you’re prayers and support, it means sooooo much and this wouldn’t be possible without them prayers!