Gift

Short thoughts today. It's the first full week of lent and I decided to start the morning doing a bit of listening. I grabbed a latte and Esquire. Ok...I know a Bible is the proper tool, but I had Esquire. I always enjoy a walk through this magazine. This issue is chock full of "bests" because it's award season. Page after page of good looking (and well styled) men and beautiful women and discussion of what makes them such. At the same time, there is a discussion at the table next to me about how "lucky" certain people are who can sing or play sports or other things while "the rest of us have to work"

Not, surprisingly, I disagree with popular opinion.

Clearly, then men and women in these pages are gifted with looks or talent or simply the resources to get their photo or story or opinion in the pages of an international men's magazine. But, in this writers humble opinion, it's not just luck. The men or women we become in our lives has to do with our gift, yes, but so much more to do with how we use our gift.

For fear of sounding arrogant, I've been gifted. I have a body, certain talents, a mind, and resources to use my life to add to the greater good. I, like anyone else, have a choice about how to spend what I've been given. I can squander them or use them to get bigger or go father or build higher. It's my pick. However, whatever I choose, I must also be aware that what I choose today gets whatever I get tomorrow. God, in his great mercy, gives me amazing things so that I can build on them.

I love the parable of the talents. Not your usual Lenten passage, I know. These three guys are given the resources of a king. They can do what they will. Two invested and became more. As a result, they were given more because they were worthy. The other, driven by fear and lack of ambition, did nothing. Buried it and lost it. He had it and he blew it by not being willing to lose.

The word for the first Monday in Lent then is simply this, work your gift. You have the opportunity to change the world. You can make a choice to let your gift go and spend the rest of your life in a starbucks explaining away other people's success in order to mask your own failure. Or, you can choose to risk. Get stronger, faster, and smarter. Challenge yourself. Risk something big. Love farther than you think you can. Do something amazing...and do it today.

I know the gifts Ive been given. They are many. There are physical resources that are will be cared for and made bett.. There are people who deserve the best version of me as I believe in them. There is my own spirit that deserves daily renewal and honor.

I'm just about halfway though this life and I'm just gathering steam.

Life is a great gift. Spend wisely.