The Investment

None of this has been meant to discourage you from using your talents in this world; that was not the intent at all. Rather, I simply wanted to emphasize the nature of a true talent. A talent always requires an investment.

But by all means, make that investment!

The Bible is very clear on this. That's what the whole parable of the talents is about. It's about the sinfulness of not investing in God's creation the things that you've been entrusted with. The only guy who got in trouble was the one who put his talents in the ground, buried them, and recovered them later with nothing to show for it except the exact measure he'd been given. He hadn't done anything at all. That was the offense.

And the tragedy.

But this doesn't mean that all talents should be invested in the same way, or in the same place. There are some talents that are going to produce 10-fold because we put them in high-stakes markets. We put them in places where there's a huge risk that they could fail, and when we do this, this is the place where we reap great rewards. It's the person who has to work at it, who has to put in the time and the effort to make a talent fruitful, but who then rises to the top and becomes a voice for something greater of God.

There are some talents that are going to produce 5-fold because we put them in medium-stakes markets. We put them in places where there's a mild risk that they could fail, and when we do this, this is the place where we reap steady rewards. It's the person who works at it, who puts in the time and the effort, but maybe doesn't rise all the way to the top. Or maybe has a talent that's kind of obscure, that's not necessarily obvious to others who might be looking on, or maybe isn't such high-value in our world. Still, there are good rewards, and the effort is worth it.

The real lesson, though, comes from the last man, the man who buried his talents in the dirt. Clearly, we are not meant to bury our talents, but see what the master says to him. You could have at least put the money in the bank, and then you would have gotten at least the interest that the bank is paying right now. 

Think about this for a second. When you put your money in a market, the market has access to that money. It gets to play with it. It gets to tangle with its worth. It gets to decide what you get back out of it. When you put your money in a bank, there's no such interplay. No one else gets to touch your money; it's just for you. 

Sometimes, that's the investment we make. Sometimes, that's the best investment we can make. Your talent doesn't have to go into the market to be valuable. You can put it in the bank and make it a resource for yourself. And still be doing honor to the talent that God has given you.

A few years ago, my worship minister (and others) kept asking why I wouldn't join the praise band, why I wouldn't offer my talents as a musician to the ministry of worship. The answer, for me, is that this is one talent that I've put in the bank. What I mean is this: I pour myself out in ministry. I give all of the gift that God has given me to give. I do what God has called me to do. And then, when I come home empty at the end of a day, music is one of the ways that God fills me up again. It's a talent that isn't in the market; it's just in my bank. It's for my own personal use. If I take that talent and start playing a high-stakes game with it, if I put that investment elsewhere, then it may not be in my account when I need to make a withdraw. If I have to make the investment to make my music "good" or to make it "worthy" of being a part of the ministry of music, then it is one more way that I'm pouring myself out. It's one more thing I'm giving away. And you just can't give away everything you've got. You weren't supposed to.

Some things were meant just for you. Some things, you just have to keep in the bank. 

But keep them in the bank. Because that's where you can use them. That's where you can make those withdraws. That's where you keep the interest growing, where you keep something steady coming into your talent.

So figure out what the market is for your talent. There is one. For some, it's going to be a high-stakes game, a very public investment with a measurable risk for success or failure. For some, it's going to be a quiet investment, a personal account for private use. For others, it's somewhere in the middle. But it's never in the dirt. It's never a hole in the ground. It's never in a place where you had to dig it up, dust it off, and clean it up before you can use it. On this, the Bible is quite clear. 

Something Beautiful

Here's what we need to be mindful of when it comes to gifts and talents: they're not the same thing. Even when we're talking about one specific idea, that very idea may be a gift for one person and a talent for another.

Think, for example, about your worship team at church. Whatever you call them. A praise band, a worship team, a music ministry, whatever. When we think about music, we often use the words 'gift' and 'talent' interchangeably. "Oh, you're so talented!" or "What a gift you have!" Yes, and yes, but usually together. 

There are persons on that worship team for whom music is a gift. It comes naturally to them and just seems to pour out of them. You can give them a piece of music, and their soul just drinks it in until it comes dripping out of them. They practice, but only because they love the music. When they practice, they are receiving the gift so that they can give it away. Every run-through draws the music deeper into their heart where it just becomes a part of them, and then they reach out with open hands and give it away.

There are other persons on that worship team, however, for whom music is a talent. It doesn't come naturally to them; it comes easier to them than to someone not talented in such a way, but their participation in worship is an investment. They take the music home and run through it again and again not so that it sinks into them, but so that they get it right. They write it out. They agonize over it. They try to train their fingers to play, their voices to capture just the right mood of praise. When they practice, they think about the coming time when they will not simply give this gift of music, but they will invest in it. They will give it without knowing the return rates, without understanding whether or how much it will grow. 

One of the reasons we must be so mindful of this difference is because it has the tendency to create some powerful insecurities.

The person who is talented in an area in which others are gifted often struggles to understand why it's so hard for them. Why they have to put in so much more work than the others. Maybe she thinks that if she continues to put in the hard work, it will one day flow as naturally out of her as it does from the others, that her talent will one day become her gift. Sadly, it doesn't usually work this way, and this can be very discouraging. Someone who is talented will always have to put in the work. They will always have to make the investment. That's what you do with talents.

On the other side of this coin, the person who is gifted in an area in which others are talented often wonders if it isn't perhaps too easy for them. If they might be missing out on something by not having to put so much work in. If they aren't taking it as seriously as someone else. If it's somehow just a "joke" to them. Maybe he thinks that if he would practice more, the song would go even deeper still, even though he realizes that the song itself comes already from the very depths of who he is. Maybe he thinks that if he really took it seriously, he'd learn something new in the process. Maybe he feels like his gift will never grow if he doesn't invest in it. But you don't invest in gifts; you receive them. So he's not missing anything really at all.

But what happens is that we end up with insecurities on both sides, and then everyone comes to worship unsure. Uncertain of what they have to offer. The talented person wonders whether the investment is enough, whether the work they've put into it has reaped sufficient returns to be valuable, whether all that work has been "worth it" in terms of offering something meaningful. The gifted person wonders if the gift is enough, if enough has been received to give enough in return. 

This is exactly why we have to know the difference between gifts and talents. Because it is in understanding what each person brings that we are able to comfort and strengthen one another. 

You can't tell a talented person that it's okay, that they're really good at this, that this is their thing and it will be beautiful because they know how hard it is for them. They know what it takes to get to this point. They've counted the hours and done the math. You can't fool them because they know their own secrets. So you have to acknowledge their investment. You have to offer them returns. You have to come back to them with numbers. That's the language of a talent.

Nor can you tell a gifted person that it's okay, they've done the work, they've put in the time, and it will be beautiful because they know how easy it's been for them. They know what comes naturally to them. They know that even if they wanted to work at doing it better, they probably don't even know how. They literally don't know what to do except let this holy thing flow through them with open hands. You can't fool them because they know how inexplicable a gift is. So you have to take their open hands and hold them. You have to embrace the gift and take. That's the language of a gift.

When we take the time to recognize the difference between gifts and talents, we encourage each other. We love each other well. And something beautiful happens.

Something like worship. 

Gifted and Talented

There's a fundamental difference between gifts and talents, one that I think goes unnoticed in our language-nonspecific culture where one word means essentially the same as the other. We read the parable of the talents and talk about how we ought to handle the stuff God entrusts to us. 

But not all the stuff God entrusts to us is the same. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether what we have is a gift or a talent.

The parable of the talents is very clear about the nature of talents: they are an investment that we are supposed to invest in, as well. Talents are things that require us to work at them, to pour ourselves into them, to pour them into the world. They are essentially like seeds - on their own, they don't amount to much, but properly cared for, they manifest into something beautiful.

A gift on the other hand is quite different. Nobody invests in a gift. Nobody invests a gift in return. A gift is simply given...and received. That's all you can do with it. That's all you're supposed to do with it. It is a flower in full bloom, ready to be displayed center-table.

The trouble comes when we confuse the two. 

We all have both gifts and talents. We all have things we're good at, but that we have to work at a little bit, and things that just pour out of us beyond our control. People generally ask us to give more of our talents, and then we're pressed because we know a talent is not so easy just to give; it must be invested and invested in. Rarely, someone may ask us to give more of our gifts (or perhaps more frequently, depending on what your gift is; mine is kind of obscure), and we realize how demanding this request is, too.

We can't just give our talent because it requires something from us. It requires us to work at it. It requires us to put in the time to make it beautiful. Writing, for me, is a talent. It's something I have to invest it. It's something I have to work at. I do so because at this stage in my life, I believe that investment is worth it. But I feel the pressure when someone asks me to write something specific. (Even, by the way, when God asks me to write something specific.) I stare at the blank paper sometimes for hours, not knowing how to make this investment, not sure about the return rates on whatever piddly bit I have to give here. Sometimes, I get a great return, tenfold of what I put into it. Sometimes, I get just what the bank will give me for having an account at all. Sometimes, I dig a hole and get nothing. Just nothing at all. 

Our gifts, on the other hand, confront us with a trouble all their own. Our gifts do not depend on how much we are able to invest in them, on how much we can pour into them in order to pour out of them. They aren't linked to interest rates or returns. But they are fully dependent on our having received them first. 

I cannot give what I have not received.

So in order to operate out of my gifts, in order to give them to the world, I have to first receive them. Over and over and over again. The more I give away, the more I am in need of receipt. With hands open to the world, I must keep my hands open to God, as well. Some days, this is easier said than done.

Some days, I'm asked to operate out of my gifts. It's a humbling experience every time, when someone knows what it is that God has given me to give the world. When someone recognizes that in me. When someone knows, in a certain situation, that I'm the one to call because I'm the one who has something to give here. And something to give freely, because no good gift comes with strings attached. 

But these requests bring me face-to-face with my own...prayerfulness? My own connectedness? They make me aware of how intentional I've been about receiving, of how faithful I've been in receiving. Some days, I don't feel like I have a lot to give. On these days, I am aware of my closed hands - hands that have not received because they have not asked. Because they have not been begging. Because they have not been needy. Some days, I feel like I have too much to give, like this world was asking for a token gift and here I come, bearing the full weight of who I am in God. Still, I am aware that I have only what I have, that I give only what I've been given, and nothing more and nothing less. 

But that's what's cool about gifts. They're free. They're simply given. You don't have to till the soil, dig a hole, fill in around them, water them, fertilize them, tend them the way that you do a seed, a talent. You just have to fluff out the petals a little bit and reach out with open hands. In fact, you couldn't do anything to a gift if you wanted to. You couldn't make another single flower grow. You only have to give what you have received. It's out of your hands.

Because it's into your hands.

That's the fundamental difference between a gift and a talent. One is freely given; the other is an investment to be made. And there's a lot that can go wrong when we confuse the two. 

There's another hidden danger here. More on that tomorrow.  

Foolishness

There are two kinds of foolishness in this world. There's the foolishness that comes as a reaction to boredom, the itching to get out and do something crazy because something crazy is better than nothing at all. And then, there's the foolishness that comes from wisdom.

That's right: wisdom.

It's not how we typically think of foolishness. We're more likely to say that foolishness is the result of naivete, not wisdom. That foolishness does what it does because it doesn't know any better. But that's not real foolishness; that's recklessness. It's impetuousness. It's the kind of knee-jerk reaction we have when we know that this moment requires that we do something, so we act without consideration of the consequences. That's not foolishness.

Foolishness is knowing the consequences and doing it anyway. There are, of course, two ways to consider this. On one hand, this may lead us down some dark and dangerous paths, like the man who robs a bank knowing that robbery is against the law, knowing he will be caught, knowing he will go to jail. On the other hand, this may lead us into the incredible thrill of a holy life.

Yes, holy.

Foolishness is wisdom that draws us into something holy. Rather, foolishness is the act of acting on such wisdom and being drawn into something holy. 

Again, it's not how we typically think of foolishness, but I think it's how we must. 

Because here's what happens. Life presents us with an opportunity, with a thousand opportunities every day. Our inclination is to consider all of our options, discover the inherent risks and benefits of taking one action over another, weigh the consequences of any course of action we might take, and then take the action that seems most "right," given the data.

Except most of us aren't really doing the math.

Most of us are factoring the factors, figuring out a new order of operations in which some numbers are weighted higher than the others. For example, it may be perfectly clear that one choice is quite better than the others, that one is clearly the path that we should take. The one thing working against that choice, though, might be public opinion. Others might laugh at us. They might not understand how we could do such a thing. Maybe culture dictates that we do something else. All of a sudden, the math doesn't matter any more. All the calculations go out the window and we re-work the numbers in light of reputation or response, not outcome. 

It's how we keep turning against God.

It's how we look at a situation and know that love is the answer, but love isn't popular; hate is popular. So we choose hate. It's how we look at a situation and know forgiveness would set us free. But this world doesn't understand forgiveness; it doesn't compute. So we substitute in things that the world knows better how to work with, and we live with unforgiveness. It's what we do with grace, with hope, with faith - we turn away because these are not the ways of this world. We might as well try to convince the world that "purple" is a number. This world does not know how to factor in such things; it doesn't understand holiness.

But foolishness does.

Foolishness always works holiness into the equation. Foolishness works in factors of grace. It embraces all the data, even the stuff that doesn't make sense to this world. Foolishness doesn't limit itself to 1+1 = 2. No, foolishness relies on wisdom that sees the whole equation. 1+1+purple+grace+butterflies+rainbows+shakalakabambam=holiness. = love. = amazing. And then foolishness goes after "amazing" in a world that's content to settle for "2." In a world that says that grace and rainbows aren't factors, that these things don't compute. Foolishness does the math and knows that they have to. They must. Wisdom demands that grace be real, that butterflies and rainbows matter, that holiness and love matter. Wisdom knows that amazing is real. 

I want to live a foolish life. I want to do something totally crazy, not because something crazy is better than nothing at all but because something crazy might just be something holy. I want to do the math and discover that there is a place for grace, for love, for hope, for faith, for mercy, for justice, for truth, for God. For holiness. And I want to go after it, even if it doesn't make sense. I want to take a risk that there's something amazing out there. 

Because "2" is not enough. 

The American Soldier

Today, in America, we pause to remember the sacrifice of the men and women who gave their lives in defense of our freedoms. 

There is something about the death of an American soldier that causes us all to just stop for a moment, to catch our breath, to consider what it is that we have. Our eyes are drawn to the movie screen, where Hollywood tells the stories of war, and you'd think we are grotesquely obsessed with it in some way. But it's more than that. 

It's what happens when we see our flag draped over a casket. It's what happens when we see that tell-tale triangular fold, war-weary hands on top and bottom and tear-stained hands just the same. It's what happens when we hear the fire of a 21-gun salute, hollow shots ringing out into empty air. It's what happens when we hear the first few notes of that old familiar bugle call...

Taps.

A few years ago, I had the honor of playing Taps at a memorial service for a Navy veteran. It's not all that difficult a call, if you can hold back the emotions that choke the wind right out of you when you think about the family that serviceman is leaving behind, when you are haunted by knowing that everyone knows what this call means, even though most have never heard it on an actual battlefield.

Leading up to that memorial, I practiced that call. I practiced that call dozens of times a day. The neighbors, I'm sure, were sick of it. But you know what? Out of the corner of my eye, over the top of the fence, I happened to see that every time I practiced that call, the neighbors stopped. They just...stopped. It didn't matter what they were doing (I don't even know what they were doing). They stopped walking and just stood there. Stopped talking to one another and just sort of stared into the skies. Over and over again as I practiced that call, life next door came to a pause. No matter how many times I played it. No matter what time of day it was. No matter what else was going on. From the very first note, there was reverent stillness.

That's what happens when an American soldier dies. That's what ought to happen.

But something else happens, too. Something that's so hard for us to wrap our minds around, especially in an age where young people take a lot of grief for being entitled, self-centered, and wholly disconnected from the world around them. What happens when an American soldier dies?

A band of brothers is born.

These guys, these men and women, these soldiers - they give everything they have for one another. No soldier left behind. They crawl through heavy fire to get to a wounded brother. They run into the burning wreckage of a bombed-out truck in hopes of a heartbeat. They tear their own uniforms to tie a tourniquet around a wounded buddy. Where blood mingles on the battlefield, it is the blood of a wounded soldier giving every last drop of his own life for the sake of his brother. 

And then, when one of these guys, when one of these soldiers, gives more than everything and gives it all, something incredible happens: a whole new generation of brothers steps up. A whole new class of soldiers enlists. A whole bunch of guys (and girls) who probably never thought about a career in the military let out a collective, "Oh, hell no" and sign up to go into the same war-torn regions of the world that took this soldier's life. They strap on their gear and set their sights on the same enemies who took out our man. 

At precisely the moment that the opposition thinks they have weakened the American military by killing its soldier, we are strengthened by the half-dozen young recruits who sign up to defend his honor. And with all America at a collective hush as Taps rings out, the only sound that remains is the sound of those boots on the ground...

...marching out to war...

...because we will not be defeated...

...and we will never forget. 

God bless our soldiers, their families, and their legacies this Memorial Day.