The gifts God gives you are yours forever.

For God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable. [He never withdraws them when once they are given, and He does not change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call.] – Romans 11:29, Amplified Bible (AMP)

God gives us a specific package of gifts to help us fulfill His specific calling for our lives.  Sometimes, it takes us awhile to figure out what the gifts and the calling are. Other times, we know what the gifts and the calling are, but we ignore them or misdirect them in order to pursue our own goals. Whether we fail to pursue God’s gifts and calling out of ignorance or out of stubborness, we can take comfort in the fact that God will wait patiently until we come around to His way of thinking.

Christopher Parkening is an American classical guitarist. In an interview with World Wide Challenge,* Parkening disclosed:

The world tells you that success is having a lot of money, being famous and being independent – doing what you want to do, when you want to do it. For years I pursued success in the music field to the point that I was able to retire to a Montana ranch at age 30. My wife and I were living what most would consider the ideal life. But a year after I got everything I wanted, it meant absolutely nothing. I was empty inside.

During that period of time I became a Christian, and my priorities changed. When I came across the passage in 1 Corinthians that says, “Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God,” I realized there were only two things I knew how to do. One was fly fish and the other was playing the guitar.

I went back to playing the guitar, but this time with a different purpose. As Bach once said, “The aim and final reason of all music is none else but the glory of God.”

Since picking up his guitar in service to his God, Parkening has impacted people for Christ in many ways, including through the release of Simple Gifts, an album of traditional Christian hymns arranged for classical guitar, and of his autobiography Grace Like a River, published in 2006.**

It’s never too late to use God’s gifts to fulfill God’s call for your life. If you are unsure of what your gifts and your call are, then search for them in the scriptures, look for them in prayer, and dig for them through career consultation models such as Career Direct.  If you know what your gifts and call are – but you have laid them aside to pursue your own way – it’s time to reverse course, dust off God’s unused gifts, and diligently pursue the work that God has given you to do.

* Source: Living by His Design seminar workbook, Career Direct (a Division of Crown Ministries), page 7.

** Source: Wikipedia.org.

Robbie Romeiser is a commercial real estate broker, real estate instructor, and author of the daily devotional Today’s Quote From God (www.TodaysQuoteFromGod.com). Desiring to help his own children follow God’s calling in their lives, Robbie founded Career Callings (www.CareerCallings.net) to help people find, prepare for, and pursue the work God has called them to do.