Kill Your Gifts Before They Kill You.

We all have different gifts. Sure, I may be smarter and better looking than you, but maybe you can ride your unicycle upside down while juggling and licking your nose with your tongue.  We are all different and are gifted in many different ways.

Nicole is very gifted in basically everything she does. It really makes me angry when I think about it. She has been doing dance and gymnastics her entire life. I, on the other hand, have dominated the dance floor only a couple of times. I can only recall one time in which Nicole has really messed up dancing. It was a doozy of a mistake, though, folks.  Let’s setup the scene. Imagine a 1950’s themed dance floor with people decked out in 50’s gear. Pretty cool so far, right? Now, picture this dance floor with blood all over it. Yeah, it was wild and totally Nicole’s fault. See, somehow mesmerized by the once in a lifetime opportunity to dance with me, Nicole managed to get her nose right in front of my elbow as I was about to finish some cool move.  The cool move never happened, but I was able to almost break her nose. Fun times.

Nicole is reserved. Socially many people would call her shy and she is, until you get to know her. After knowing her she is anything but shy. If you know anything about Nicole you know that she only gets engaged to amazing men. I can’t think of one dude that she has been engaged to that hasn’t been super cool. If you have ever spent time with her you also know that she loves being active and she feels closest to God when she is dancing and doing what she loves.

I love basketball and sometimes I can even make a few shots when I am playing in pickup games. I can’t dunk yet, but I can touch the upper part of the lower net so I’m getting there. I remember playing all day at courts and built a lot of great friendships with people through playing. At one particular church I worked at, 70 percent of the youth group I had met playing basketball. The thing is no one ever got mad at me for using my gifts and abilities because it was basketball.

I have seen someone’s entire life get altered and crushed by them using their God given gifts and abilities. I’ll share this story with you.

There was once a small child who at an early age began doing dance and gymnastics. She loved performing and excelled greatly and even competed in several Junior Olympics. She continued through high school and then decided to become a high school cheerleader. In high school this pretty lady ended up meeting this amazing guy who really liked basketball, but he couldn’t dunk the ball. Legend has it he could nearly touch the upper part of the lower net, though. The beautiful lady continued doing cheerleading through her senior year in high school. Through cheerleading she started attending church, met some really amazing friends, and grew in her relationship with Christ.

 The story continues as one day she marries a youth pastor and became very involved with the church, but she still loved dancing. It turns out that her love for dance would end up killing her.

The young lady with an incredible ability, desire, and passion to dance saw an opportunity to dance and she seized it. She had no idea at the time that her life, friends, or future enemies would be defined by this moment.

This sweet, shy, former cheerleader, gymnast, and dancer tried out for a professional football team’s cheerleading squad and made it.  A huge accomplishment by most people’s standard turned into her own personal nightmare.

How could something as cool as becoming an NFL cheerleader ruin someone’s life? It’s pretty easy if you think about it. The main character in the story was involved in a “Christian” organization that loved rebuking and tearing people down more than it did building people up.

Maybe I’m just not good enough at basketball. Don’t get me wrong, I am a dominator, but for some reason I have never been called a “Man Slut” or “Basketball Whore”. I guess I’ll just have to pick up my game to the next level so that my good friends can call me those marvelous names.

Slut and whore, though, are names that our main character in our make believe story were called.  She was the subject of everyone’s conversations and criticism. She was told several times to repent of her evil way and that she should be ashamed of herself. She was informed that God was very displeased with her and so were her closest friends.

Where were these friends when our character was doing dance, gymnastics, and cheerleading for the previous 15 years? High School cheerleading is great, but anything beyond that is completely sinful. It makes sense, I guess. The outfits and dance moves they do are so much different. Oooh wait, no they are not.  I guess that means that all middle and high school cheerleaders are sluts and whores. Someone call CNN for the breaking news update.

If God had only gifted her in bowling or sewing, none of this would have ever happened. No one is jealous of a bowler or even a marble collector. If you are attractive, in great shape, and for some reason the sweetest girl in America, though, everyone is jealous and looking for an opportunity to put you down.  I guess it is the American Christian way.

Dear Professional Christians, please know that the way you love people sucks. In fact, to the outside world that you are trying to reach, it often looks like bitterness and hate.

Christians will never be able to reach out to others while at the same time they kill their own.

The way people speak to you greatly affects you in many ways. My golden retriever didn’t learn to attack my little sister by me telling him just one time. It took repetition over time (see the Golden Retriever Attack Story here).

After several encounters with your closest friends proclaiming to you that you are in deep sin, that your actions reflect that of a whore, and some even questioning your salvation, you become kind of withdrawn and lose a lot of trust and confidence in people.

In this story Christians attacked and successfully shamed one of their own and for what? How was God glorified through that?  No one praised Nicole (oops, now you know this story is real) for the amazing opportunity she had to establish friendships with these cheerleaders.  I guess the Christian mission is to have the “lost” and the “lonely” come to them.

Please, Bible Bob and Holy Holly, do not use the gifts and abilities that God has given you to reach people. Don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

Stay safe Christians. Keep going to your little Bible studies that have never grown beyond the people who started it. Don’t reach out. The “worldly” people will just mess your little Holy huddles up. Trust me on this one. You will have much more fun watching who in your Christian huddle is the last to find where the scripture of the day is located.

I think if Christians spent more time loving people like Jesus loved and less time making themselves feel Holy we would be much better off.

Do yourself a favor. Identify your God given gifts and abilities and then kill them before they kill you.