In today’s podcast, I want to discuss what’s referred to as The Parable of Talents. This takes place in Matthew 25:14- 29. There was a man who had three servants. He gave the one servant 5 talents, the second servant 2 talents, and the last servant one talent.
When their boss came back he wanted to see how his servants spent their talents. The first two servants doubled their talents. However, the last servant that was given one talent went and buried his talent. Needless to say, his boss was upset. The boss took this servant’s talent away from him and gave it to the servant that had 10 talents.
In case you haven’t figured it out, this parable is a metaphor for our relationship with God. Now even though the story refers to talent from the sense of money, we can view this today as our natural skills. God blessed everyone on this earth with a talent. Yet, so many people either consciously or subconsciously have chosen to bury their talent due to ignorance, fear or laziness.
Ignorance
If you don’t know what talent you possess then you may be under the impression that you don’t have any. Obviously, this couldn’t be further from the truth but if you don’t believe that you possess valuable skills, you won’t bother to pursue identifying your talent.
Fear
Even if you do identify your talent you may be too afraid to cultivate it for fear of what other people may think. So for example, if you possess the gift of song, you may keep your amazing voice a secret for fear of other criticizing you.
Laziness
Some people don’t even want to learn what skills they possess because that means that they would have to work. They would rather make excuses like the one talent man about why they can’t do something instead of trying to exert the energy to make it happen.
Regardless of what the reason may be, the end result is if you don’t use it you will lose it. God gives everyone the opportunity to hone their talents. However, it’s up to us to put forth the effort to identify our talent. Once we do this we need to work towards determining how to use our talent to glorify God while helping others discover their talent.
If we bury our talent, we will die emotionally and sometimes physically. We die an emotional death because it hurts when we know we’re capable of doing more but allow ignorance or fear to get in the way. We’ll end up living a life of should of, would of, could ofs.
A soul filled with negativity will eventually start to affect your body. When you keep all that frustration inside it eats away at you. Depending on how you process negativity you may feel depressed, angry, or some other negative emotion that will manifest itself into an ailment. If you’re constantly living your life in fear, you worry a lot. This can have detrimental effects on your stomach, cause you to experience headaches and other undesirable effects on your body.
It has always been my goal to never live a life of regrets which is easier said than ever to do these days. We live in a world where people feel compelled to compare themselves to other people.
Unfortunately, many base their self-worth based on the number of likes, shares, repins or echoes they receive on the content that they have created. There’s nothing wrong with wanting people to appreciate your accomplishments but we have to keep them in perspective.
If our pursuit of worldly recognition causes us to bury our talent due to analysis paralysis or takes away time from improving our relationship with God then that goal is not worth the risk. As long as your goals are aligned with God’s word those are talents that you need to pursue.
If you find that you have been burying your talents, it’s never too late to resurrect them.
I would love to hear your comments and thoughts about whether you have buried your talents.
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