July 23, 2001
CYBERCOLUMN:
Integrity and skill
___By Berry D. Simpson
___One afternoon recently, I went running at 5:30 when it was a 102 degrees. I’ll admit that might not be very smart, but at least it was consistent, since I run quite often in the heat. While I was running, I worked on Psalm 78:72, which says, "So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them with his skillful hands."
___The verse describes how God watched after Israel, and it’s a good guideline for howwe should behave. It shows two sides of being a Christian leader—two aspects and both equally important.
BERRY D. SIMPSON
___I was looking at this verse when I turned south into a very hot headwind, and for some reason I was reminded of the battle between David and Goliath.
___Young David first tried to wear King Saul’s armor into the battle, but he discovered that because the armor was so big and he was so small, he couldn’t even walk around in it, much less fight. David decided to fight Goliath using his sling and a handful of small river stones. It wasn’t that David turned his back on human tools (armor and sword), but that he chose to fight with weapons he knew well. He fought with his skillful hands. He’d spent most of his life as a shepherd protecting his flocks from predators with nothing but a sling. He not only had the skill to put a stone in the right spot from a distance, he had the confidence and courage to do it while under attack.
___I believe God wants us to use our own skillful hands. That means we should practice the skills he’s given us.
___About once every two years, we sit down with our Sunday School class and take a survey to help discover our spiritual gifts. I like for our class to work on discovering spiritual gifts because we should become skillful at those things. If my spiritual gift is preaching, I should get good at preaching. If my gift is administration, I should develop skills to make myself a good organizer and manager and administrator. If my gift is teaching, I ought to be reading books and attending seminars to help me be a better teacher. If my gift is running (which, to anyone who saw me on that hot day, is a joke), then I should train hard.
___We want to guide with skillful hands, and the only way to minister with skill is to learn and practice. The thing is, I believe when we try to improve the skills that correspond with our spiritual gifts we will get a double blessing from God. He will bless our use of the gift he gave us, and he will help us learn how to use those gifts. God will reward our efforts to improve our skills.
___It shouldn’t be a hard thing. Spiritual gifts are complimented by our personalities, and when we practice to develop our skills, we are doing things that come natural to us. In our Sunday School class exercises, I’ve never had someone who was surprised to discover their gift. Instead, they usually say something like: "Yeah that’s what I thought. That’s what I like to do."
___Someone with a spiritual gift of teaching won’t resent efforts to become a better teacher. In fact, learning more skill is a relief. In my own life, spiritual gifts feel more like spiritual obligations, and developing my skills makes me more confident I am meeting those obligations.
___Using spiritual gifts isn’t a contest, and I am not saying we should learn and practice our particular skills just so we can be better than everyone else. I am saying we should practice and learn because God has given us a gift, and how dare we not use it as best we can. To do anything less would be tragic. It would be turning our back on God and on his gifts to us.
___The verse in Psalms also says God shepherded the people according to the integrity of his heart. Again, this is a call for us to follow his footsteps, and again, we have an example in the story of David and Goliath.
___David had the skills he needed to defeat Goliath, but that wasn’t why he volunteered to fight. He heard Goliath taunting Israel and making fun of God, and David could not tolerate that. He could not listen to someone blaspheme against God. He had to act.
___It was David’s heart that put him into combat with Goliath. And it was the quality of David’s heart, the integrity of his heart, which convinced Saul to allow David to fight Goliath. David attacked Goliath with the integrity of his heart, and won the battle with his skillful hands.
___That is my prayer for myself. I want to lead God’s way, with integrity of heart and skillful hands. Therefore, I must invest quality time growing my heart toward God, and invest training time improving the skills He’s given me.
___Berry Simpson, a Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland.
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