questions, questions.

Doing this survey about "spiritual gifts" for ministry teams at Harvest, I think I've learned a lot. I can speak multitudes about how multi-talented I am or try to distinguish myself from the crowd, but I find that when I come back to this simple list of things such as "giving," "teaching," "encouraging," "inspiring," I fall short.

I believe that I should be cultivating something more than my own natural talents or pride, maybe something less professional and more spiritual. I know that you know sometimes I just want to take it easy and have the others do the hard work, and take the credit.

But something about yesterday's lesson from Matthew 6, about doing things in secret (fasting in secret, giving to the needy in secret), tells me that the way I've been living and doing my so-called "serving" is so skewed that I find that much of my spiritual relationship is based on my attempt to meet others expectations of me.

Oh, I need a wake-up call. I just want to find that someday God will look down on me with favor. I know that he's always loved me, I know that I am a constant sinner, but I want to be obedient.