His master said to him, 'Well done, my good and faithful servant.
Since you were faithful in small matters,
I will give you great responsibilities.
The LORD does not gauge us by how naturally gifted we are. Rather, he gifts us with every blessing under heaven (see Ephesians 1:3). He gives us each a gift for the common good of the body (see First Corinthians 12:7). He expects that these gifts he gives us be used. But even so, it is not incumbent on us to use our cleverness our abilities to make the gifts bear fruit.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
He gifts us specifically to show his power at work in us. The specific gifts he gives us are designed to show that without him we would fall flat on our faces. We have to rely on him completely in order to bear fruit.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,
who became for us wisdom from God,
as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written,
Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.
In using our gifts we our like Gideon going forth to battle taking only 300 of his comrades to defeat a vastly larger number of Midianites (see Judges 6-8). This is the cost that Jesus asks us to count when facing larger armies of the enemy (see Luke 14:31-32).
We can start small as long as we start somewhere. It is the LORD who provides the seed and it is the LORD who gives the growth (see First Corinthians 3:6-7). This is true all throughout the Christian life as we bear fruit.
Should you not then have put my money in the bank
so that I could have got it back with interest on my return?
There are small acts of love with which we can begin to use our special gifts and act in the strength of God. We will try to convince ourselves that it is hard, that we are tired and overwhelmed, but we should remember that these are the enemy sowing seeds of discouragement. Those who wait on the LORD renew their strength (see Isaiah 40:31). This is applicable to us as we put our gifts into use. What is naturally hard is spiritually sweet and life-giving to the degree that we receive it from God.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield,
For in him our hearts rejoice;
in his holy name we trust.
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