Silas
Beloved of All
Your request is deeply honest and I want to pray with you about both of these burdens.
Regarding the gifts God has given you, Scripture teaches that there are many different kinds of gifts but it is the same Spirit, and different ways of serving but the same Lord. No one person has every gift. The Holy Spirit Himself gives to each person as He wills, and God places each member in the body as it pleases Him. That means your calling and your career are not a matter of finding something you manufacture on your own, but of discovering the place God has already prepared for you to serve Him and to build up others. It is good and right to desire the best gifts and to ask God to make clear how He has equipped you. As you seek Him, ask Him to show you what you do well for His glory, what needs around you stir your heart, and where other believers confirm that God is using you. Remember also that the gifts themselves are tools for this present time. What is greater and will remain is love. Love is more excellent than any gift, because gifts will one day no longer be needed, but love endures. Whatever career or ministry God opens, pursue it in love, for that is what makes any gift truly fruitful.
The struggle to forgive your mother is also very real, and the heaviness you feel is understandable. The Bible returns to this theme again and again because God knows how hard it is. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He included forgive us our debts as we forgive those who have sinned against us, and that was the one part of the prayer He went on to emphasize. Peter once thought he was being generous to forgive someone seven times for the same offense, but Jesus answered seventy times seven, showing that forgiveness is not a matter of counting but a matter of having a forgiving spirit. We are called to be kind to one another, tenderhearted rather than hard hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. That is the measure. God does not ask this because the wound was small. He asks it because He has forgiven us so much in Christ, and He wants to free us from being eaten up by anger and bitterness. Honoring your father and mother is the first commandment with a promise, and that honor includes releasing them to God even when they have failed you. Forgiveness does not mean the past did not hurt or that trust is instantly restored, but it does mean choosing before God to let go of the right to hold the debt over them, as He has let go of our debt.
I am praying that the Lord will give you clear direction about the gifts He has placed in your life and open the right doors for how to use them in your work, and that He will fill you with His love which is better than any gift. I am also praying that He will give you a tender heart and the power to forgive as you have been forgiven, and that the weight you carry will be lifted as you bring your mother and the pain to Jesus and leave it with Him.
Regarding the gifts God has given you, Scripture teaches that there are many different kinds of gifts but it is the same Spirit, and different ways of serving but the same Lord. No one person has every gift. The Holy Spirit Himself gives to each person as He wills, and God places each member in the body as it pleases Him. That means your calling and your career are not a matter of finding something you manufacture on your own, but of discovering the place God has already prepared for you to serve Him and to build up others. It is good and right to desire the best gifts and to ask God to make clear how He has equipped you. As you seek Him, ask Him to show you what you do well for His glory, what needs around you stir your heart, and where other believers confirm that God is using you. Remember also that the gifts themselves are tools for this present time. What is greater and will remain is love. Love is more excellent than any gift, because gifts will one day no longer be needed, but love endures. Whatever career or ministry God opens, pursue it in love, for that is what makes any gift truly fruitful.
The struggle to forgive your mother is also very real, and the heaviness you feel is understandable. The Bible returns to this theme again and again because God knows how hard it is. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He included forgive us our debts as we forgive those who have sinned against us, and that was the one part of the prayer He went on to emphasize. Peter once thought he was being generous to forgive someone seven times for the same offense, but Jesus answered seventy times seven, showing that forgiveness is not a matter of counting but a matter of having a forgiving spirit. We are called to be kind to one another, tenderhearted rather than hard hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. That is the measure. God does not ask this because the wound was small. He asks it because He has forgiven us so much in Christ, and He wants to free us from being eaten up by anger and bitterness. Honoring your father and mother is the first commandment with a promise, and that honor includes releasing them to God even when they have failed you. Forgiveness does not mean the past did not hurt or that trust is instantly restored, but it does mean choosing before God to let go of the right to hold the debt over them, as He has let go of our debt.
I am praying that the Lord will give you clear direction about the gifts He has placed in your life and open the right doors for how to use them in your work, and that He will fill you with His love which is better than any gift. I am also praying that He will give you a tender heart and the power to forgive as you have been forgiven, and that the weight you carry will be lifted as you bring your mother and the pain to Jesus and leave it with Him.
