Day 1

Does a gift need developing ?

 

Our background has taught us a limited field of gifts. On the one hand it seems like those who are gifted have’ arrived’ and do not need any further  training. A lot of people assume that if you have a gift you don’t require training. That’s not true. The fact that you are gifted makes you desire  training even more. You are so interested in doing well, you look for education in the area of gifting.

On the other hand those who assume that they do not have gifts feel inferior and unable to rise to their responsibility. Because they don’t feel gifted they feel shy to do anything useful. In their own mind, they someone else is so gifted….. Why did you pick on me? Can’t you see I am hopeless, useless?

 

Day 2

 

No gift is better than the other

 

Once you discover you have a gift and the gift is different from what Ng’ang’a  has, you are never intimidated by Ng’ang’a. Obviously Ng’ang’a may be gifted in speaking, but you are also gifted in doing something else like listening and retaining information.  There are people who listen in a meeting, some of them may not write any notes, three years to come they can remind you exactly what you said. That’s a gift, isn’t it?

You need to understand that once you know that the fact you don’t have this gift does not mean that you have no other gift, you neither get  proud of your achievements nor  intimidated by how good others are. You know you don’t have my gift but you have your own gift. Talking  about intimidation, I went through ite as started getting opportunities to speak to groups. The first time  I was invited to preach in a high school was 1970. So I have preached for the last over forty years. I had not even left high school by the time I was invited to speak. But when I forget that speaking is just a gift from God ,even to date I  at times  still gets  intimidated and I have to pray for courage . Another time I was invited by a club of rich people. I was invited as an after dinner speaker. I went with my   wife, Rebecca. One wife asked, ‘this year, where did you do your shopping?’ She then added, ‘I went to Paris. And by the way that city is improving day and day’. The other one answered ,’ Me, this time I was in London’. I realized I had never taken my  wife anywhere similar nor could we afford it. I have taken her somewhere. Even if it is Gikomba, it is somewhere. You seat there feeling intimidated and yet you are still expected to speak and you may wonder, where do you begin. Ealier as we parked,  the kind of cars could tell us  who was inside the party. You become intimidated until you realize… as for money, they truly  have the gift of money. But the only reason they wanted me to talk is because they don’t have what they believed I had. And so as I go to the podium I am not intimated. God has given me the message, isn’t it? I am talking about making money.

 

Day 3

 

So your professional competence is a gift

For a long time I had only one degree. And I was supposed to speak go to a place where there are professors. They have asked me to give them a talk. Exactly how do you deal with them when they are academic giants? Then I realize, they would never have called me if they knew what they want me to tell them. So as I speak  I tell God,  give me your message that can benefit them. That you start understanding that this issue of discovering you gift is also related to knowing that your gift might not be my gift and the fact that I don’t have your gift does not make me inferior. Are we together? That every gift matters. You need it, it is important. So you cannot be intimidated by the other person’s gift because you have your own gift. Now, related to that is the other angle of it. The day you discover that you have this gift and I have this gift, what does it do to you? All over sudden all your pride goes. You have nothing to be proud about because you realize although you have this gift, you don’t have the other gift. So this person has a gift you don’t have. All you do is pride disappears. And you know there are people with pride. What are you doing? I am doing law. And you feel like walking with shoulders a littler higher. What are you doing? I am doing sociology. Oh pole. And the student walks with a … I am doing law. You need to understand that, that is foolishness of the highest order. Because you need a lawyer but if all of us are lawyers, there will be trouble, isn’t it? But the sociologists are the ones who understand human dynamics so that the lawyer can have less work. Are you getting the point? So that if God has given you a gift in helping people to relate better, that’s a gift. So when a lawyer needs a lawyer who is good at organizing people, getting them to have social skills, getting them to relate better and they are happy, the lawyer keeps wondering, oh God, I wish that’s the gift you gave me! Because he realizes he also needs it, isn’t it? A boy is just about to be divorced by his wife. And he wonders, how can I how can I deal with this lady better? You come to the sociologist. Please help me. Last time she wanted to divorce me.  Now, you need to understand that a lawyer may be happy to help other people divorce but he is not happy to be helped to divorce. He is not looking for another lawyer, he is looking for a sociologist. Are you getting the point? Am I communicating? It is important to then understand that if you are walking as a lawyer so proud, until you realize, you yourself need a sociologist. It will make you have respect for other people. Are we together? And so pride no longer comes. Or you are a doctor in medicine, that is good, but that means you are going to need other people, isn’t it? Because you will be .. last weekend I was talking to a doctor, actually a specialist consultant who told me that he wants to go to a service in time at eight o’clock because he has patients every day of the week. Then the wife told me, tell him it is not a good thing. The wife wants me to help them because she says sometimes we go to church, both of them born again, and then he says, let me check a patient. She said she slept in the car until five in the evening. But from eight o’clock Sunday to five she was tied up in the car. I said, brother now I understand why your wife needs help. Why are you doing that? He said, Brother Ng’ang’a understand patience. Do you realize he required somebody to teach him time keeping… I gave him an assignment to do  a bible study on 1 Corinthians 7. By the time I was talking he had already read the chapter. You need to understand it is a desperate… am I communicating? So that you understand it doesn’t matter what your gift is, you need somebody else. Are we together? And the other person’s gift is not unnecessary. Otherwise God would not have created that gift. Are we together? So that pride disappears when you discover that your gift doesn’t make you better than the other person’s gifts. Of course some gifts are more exhibition-like. In other words people will see them. Some other gifts, nobody will ever hear them. But the truth of the matter is, God knows you, isn’t it? And it is actually the kingdom of God is benefitting from that. And I thought that’s a very important thing for us to deal with but what is meant by gifts. How can one discover these giftings I am talking about and if you discover it, how can you develop them and how to use them as a Christian in God’s kingdom. I want to start with this, all that was introduction. That a gift is not something you work to gain. In other words, if I gave this microphone, it cannot go around being proud that he has a microphone. He never bought it. He got it, he also use it. Isn’t it? So if he is proud, we will wonder. A gift means a benefactor, just looked at you, and saw you are responsible and therefore gave you a mike. But that’s the first thing that you understand about gifts. That gifts are things that come from somebody else, it is not something that you have necessary earned yourself. That’s why if there is anything you should not be proud about, it is a gift, isn’t it? That’s why for example in medicine, some of us wanted to be a doctor but every time they did biology they used to fail with crawling colours while you pass with flying colours. That’s how they discovered that God did not call them to medicine. But if you clearly want to see, when they ended up wanting to do law, they excelled in law, isn’t it? But in medicine they didn’t. What does that tell you? It is not that you re better than them, it is only that, that’s not their area of gifting. It is a gift.

 

 

So you need to understand that every gift you have is actually God-given. Am I communicating? It is God-given. And when I talk about gifts, there are spiritual gifts and there are also what we call natural gifts. But whether they are natural gifts or spiritual gifts, all of them come from God. So that you don’t just check the book of 1 Corinthians 14 and see the ones that are written there. There are many others that are not written in that book and we see them. Actually when you go to the Old Testament in the book of Exodus there is somebody, and we are told that he had a gift. God put in a spirit in him of craftsmanship. Have you read that in the bible? So that when he made the things of the temple, nobody else was allowed to make because God had put a spirit, not a spirit to speak in tongues, a spirit to make mats. Are you getting the point? So that you start understanding that when we talk about gifts, we are not just limited to the ones you see limited. Even the other thing, like I think that’s what in Exodus, the bible is telling us, that if you need an architect, people who were architects, it is the Spirit of God put in them of architecture.

 

Day 4

 

You are steward of all the gifts you have

 

It is an important thing that you understand that even the training you have is a God given gift. Every thing you have, whether it is a natural gift or a spiritual gift, it is God’s gift to you. But  it is not your gift, you don’t own it, you are only a steward. The critical word if you come out of this discussion today, please remember you gift is God’s gift donated to you and you are only a steward of that gift. What is a steward? I think that’s an important word to deal with. At least one thing you can know, if you are a steward you are not an owner. That’s one of the definitions of a steward. A steward is a person who is not an owner. This is, a steward is a conducting, supervising or managing something owned by somebody else. If you are a steward you are either conducting, supervising or managing something owned by somebody else. It is the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to your care. That’s what we call stewardships. So all of us, because we have seen we all have gifts, then we need to understand we are stewards. That whatever you have you are steward. I have used this example many times because I don’t find better example than this. The best way of looking at who a steward is a bank manager.  You know a bank manager is somebody I sympathize with because especially in Kenya, when you hear somebody is a branch bank manager of one of top five, most likely, his bank looks after billions. He can write a banker’s cheque for you and sign and you can get a hundred million to yourself. You know, and all of us fear the bank manager. When you go to visit him your legs start having fellowship. But do you know that guy at exactly the same time he is having a quarrel with his wife because the wife has been saying the child needs a bicycle. Now, he has been having a tricycle. Now, surely, that’s for babies. My boy is serious, buy him.  Then he checks his account and realizes the only money remaining is three thousand and a bicycle is ten thousand. Remember he has a just signed a cheque for how much money? But he cannot withdraw even five thousand. Are you getting the point? Because all those billions are not his money. He is only a steward of the money. The only money that is his is may be a hundred thousand shillings he has per month. That’s what he must budget for. The rest he only, and he cannot give himself. My first job when I left university in the mid nineteen seventies was at a development bank. And I sat there seeing rich people, signing their loans, releasing their loans, and I realized I cannot give myself a loan. The rules don’t allow. Are you getting the point? So I can be helping people to be rich but I myself cannot be rich. Are you getting my point? So it is important to understand a steward is like a bank manager. He is looking after a lot of power but that power is accountable to the board.

 

Day 5

 

Every Gift You Have You Are Accountable For It To God The Giver

 

Now, the board in this instance is God. So every gift you have you are accountable for it and even if not in this life, in the final day you will have to give an answer to how you managed your gift. Have you, do you have a gift of medicine, you are a doctor, everybody who has died because of you carelessness you will just see them. Because I don’t think in heaven there will be the question of asking for eye witness, it will come before you. Because, you became a doctor in order to help God’s people not to suffer from sickness. So whether you are saying, my salary is too low, like Kenyan doctors, it is important to understand that God is holding you responsible  for everybody he brings your way who is not feeling well. Are we together? Like may be for you, like I was saying today, you are a student, at university in Rwanda, and God allowed you to go there as a gift. Because there are many people in Rwanda who wanted to go there but they didn’t. If you go there until you are careless and you are thrown out of campus, remember your parents may not ask you but God will hold you accountable.

That’s what gifts are all about. When you discover a gift  is not yours to do whatever you want, you will be diligent in your work. If I have given you a gift I can give you conditions on how to use the gifts, isn’t it? And that’s what God has done. That’s the second thing I wanted you to understand. That we are stewards of whatever gift God has given you and God will hold you accountable for it.

We have seen that in order to be what God wants you to be, you must know who you are.

 

Challenges of discovering your self

 

Parents contribute a lot to who we are but could damage our self image. You could have been by parents who told you, you are hopeless, useless, you amount to nothing. Do we have parents like that? And you started believing them. But you see your parents do not own you. You belong to God. They were just a delivery system. You need to understand your parents don’t know you because they don’t really, you know you will surprise them. That’s why for example your nose is like you father, your ears are like your mother and your back is like your grandmother’s. You need to understand you are not like any one of them. Am I right? Sometimes you check yourself and your ears are not like your mothers, does not look like you father’s, because there were recessive genes in three generations which were in your great grandfather and have now reappeared in your ears. You are not like anybody, you are original. And that’s one of the things that we in Africa don’t like believing. That your children, and I have three of them, are not like you. They are unique, created by God, may be they are gifted to accomplish something I will never have to accomplish. But in African tradition, you are supposed to be like your mother. Am I right? That is not biblical. The bible, every one of us is an original. And like somebody says, don’t die a copy. You are original and God wants you to discover, not what your mother says about you, who are you really. If they say you are useless, don’t believe them.

Teachers also contribute a lot to who we are but they could also damage our self image.

One day, I was in Addis Ababa, and I used to do a job where Ethiopia was one of the countries I was covering. And so I would stay in Hilton Hotel in Addis Ababa. One day I came in from the Shell office, because every time I was in Addis Ababa I was staying in the Hilton. When I came in, and I found some books being sold. And I found a small book that was on sale which contained school  report forms of great men. What did the teachers say about them? They talk about J.F. Kennedy,Chrchill, etc. The teachers got it wrong almost in every case. Somebody like Churchill, who was  the prime minister of Britain during the Second World War,every teacher seemed  in agreement, in the view that : this boy is so playful, he will amount to nothing. Every report seemed to confirm that  there is nothing he could  ever accomplish in life . Yet he ended so gifted that he became  the most powerful prime minister the world has ever known. The teachers acted on their observation, they were not lying. From what they had seen, they were not lying. But you see the teacher may only see only as far as he can see. So the far he can see, the teacher says, this boy will amount to nothing. But each one of the people in the book went on to become great men or women the world has ever known.

But what I was trying to get you to understand in analyzing you gifts , do not limit yourself to what your mother says, to what your father says. It is important to understand, who are you really? What are your strengths? And they could be what your mother said but they could also be something your mother has ever discovered because she doesn’t know. Nobody knows you fully.

 

Day 6

Why is it so difficult for your friends to fully know you?

Someone has said that each one of us could be put in four parts . There is a part of you only you know about yourself. Even your parents don’t know. Every one of us has a part nobody but you knows. You know, during Christmas day I called my family together including my married daughter. And they were talking about, they used to be in Kisumu in the eighties, and they were talking about some things they did. I said, but I have never heard that? That is in the eighties, that is more than twenty years ago when they were young. And they are now grown ups. And I said, waaah you mean even my children, there are things I don’t know and they grew up in my own house. They are now laughing about me. You need to understand that the truth of the matter is, there is a part of you only you knows. Let me surprise you, there is a part of you others know and you don’t. It is so embarrassing. And the day I discovered that I felt very embarrassing. That as I am walking here you know something I don’t know. At least one thing you know is that you never yourself at the middle of the back. Am I right? So you can have a piece of ugali there walking, and everybody can see you have a piece of ugali, and you look at yourself in the mirror but you can’t see the ugali. It is still at the back. Others know about it, but there is something you don’t know about yourself. And that’s why it is important to also share with others. When you have friends, honest friends, the more you know about yourself because now, you will know what they know about yourself and you will know what they know and you don’t know. Are we together?  Number three, there is a part of you where you and them know. Remember we started there is a part only you know, a part only them know, a part where both of you know. For example, you are short-tempered. You know you are short-tempered, I also know you are short-tempered. So that area, all of us know. That is the part in friendship that is supposed to be expanded continuously. Where you volunteer information about you, you increase that area your friends volunteer information about you, they increase it. You know there are many friends because they know things about you but they dare not tell you because they will lose as friends. Haiya ukimwambia hivo, hii friendship ita break. That is now sheng. If I tell him that, he might never be friends again. Do you hear friends like that who can talk about you in your absence but they can never face. Those are useless friends. Okay, they are still friends. It is very important to understand that if they are useful friends, it will be important they tell you what they know about you, you don’t know about yourself. Now I am in the third area. Would you like to know about the last area, the fourth area? The fourth area is a part you don’t know and your friends don’t know, only God knows. So when they say, huyu namjua. I know him. That’s a lie. You only know one fourth, except what else has been volunteered.  There is an area only God knows.

 

Day 7

You must do a SWOT analysis on yourself.

 

SWOT analysis is away of  getting to discover your gifts. SWOT stands for Strengths –Weaknesses-Threats And Opportunities. The exercise needs a retreat where you are seeking God’s mind.

 

 

Go to a place where nobody can disturb you. This is a serious matter. It is a way of looking at your own life.

The first step you do in the SWOT analysis is look at the strengths you have. Remember at that point you initially close your mind to all weaknesses. Do not listen to what your mother or your uncle has said about you. There are strengths you have. You are only asking God, show me who I am and the strengths you have given me. And you keep listing them and you will be surprised at how long the list. Every one of us, including the one where the mother has condemned as useless, you will discover there are many, many strengths.

Remember the whole exercise is to discover where God is calling you. For example when I heard as  a small boy in 1964, God is calling me to be like John the Baptist, I did not  even know English which I have needed later. Somehow He developed my gift of talking. Now I spend most of time talking to people, fulfilling my mission. But the gift was already there but had to be developed. So anyway, you have to know your strengths however undeveloped they are.

List them. Once you have listed them, maybe they are fifty, now rank them. Which is the strength you have that is great.

Once you have done that, open a new page for listing your weakness. And be frank with yourself. Let every weakness come out. Not so that you become hopeless but because once you know your weakness you know how to manage it. Am I right? But if you don’t know your weakness, you can’t manage it. So it is important to know your weakness so that you actually manage it. And the best way to get to be a performer is to understand your weaknesses so that two things happen: you manage it well, you also avoid to do things that exhibit your weakness. Am I right? So it is important to know them. go to your weaknesses because you have weaknesses. The way we know we are human, every one of us has weaknesses. The trouble with many of us we assume we don’t. If you don’t accept your weaknesses you will never be able to manage them. So the first thing is to acknowledge them ,accept them and then manage them. The strengths suggest to you where God wants you to go.

However, the strengths or weaknesses  is how you are now. The next thing is looking into your future. And when you look into your future you see both threats and opportunities. Things that are likely to stop you going  towards your mission are threats .       But then there are opportunities. Things about your life that make it possible for you fulfill your mission.

 

Start with threats to your mission. In my future what are things surrounding me about my environment that are going to be a threat? List all the threats. For example, you have a very, very talkative and controlling mother. This could be a  threat, isn’t it? Every time you share a secret, your mother broadcasts it. You end up in trouble because of that weakness in your mother .A threat is anything that will stop you being who God wants you to be. However , if there is a threat and God wants you to succeed, He will give you friends that can help you to deal with the threat.

 

Then the last analysis on SWOT is on opportunities. What is it in you that you can see in your past, present and future environment  will assist you realize your mission. For example if your father was an ambassador and you stayed in Vancouver  for three years, in Hong Kong for another three years, so that you really have spent your life everywhere in the world. You know that exposure has given you opportunity no many have , isn’t it?

May  be it has made you speak may international language and find it easy to fit with strangers. So you need to look at, what opportunities that are yours because of the journey God has taken you through. Some of them are opportunities that people don’t regard as positive. For example, you were born very poor. Then as if that was not enough your father died when you were thirteen. And as if that’s not bad enough, when you were in first year your mother also died. Surely, by the time you graduate you have had problems more than the share of an average person life time. Do you know what that means? It means that there is  possibility that nothing can shake you into the future. God has given you something called resilience. The ability to go down and not go flat, you still rise up again.

But if God gave you the kind past where you have never suffered, you have never had a problem, please  not that your resilience might be low. Please look at the background God has given you, and start realizing that many of the things that have happened to you could help deal with either threats or opportunities.

That’s the SWOT analysis that you need to do if you truly want to discover who you are and what are your gifts. Please understand you are unique. So as you do that what you are trying to discover your uniqueness. You are not to compare yourself with another because you are uniquely created to handle  your purpose.

You will want to know who you really are. And please understand that God does not run out of ideas, so He did not make you like somebody else. You are a model of his. You may even be born identical twins but it is only the bodies that are identical. The spirits are not.  However identical you are, the spirit within you is not identical. It is important to know who you really are because that’s what makes you unique so that you may go where God wants you to go.