I met a girl a couple of years ago, she comes around my city say, once in 2 months, she usually comes to see her sister who fellowships in my church so we became well acquainted, thanks to her sister who is the mutual person between us both.

We follow each other on social media and so I see her posts, In my life, she’s literally one of the most creative person’s I’ve met but for some reason, it never occurred to me to even say it out.

She came around this weekend and while in conversation after the service I saw her drawing lines on her iPad and so I scouted over to see what she was doing, I sat there and watched her turn an average picture into the most antique, abstract and beautiful picture I had ever seen. In my amazement, I ask her how she even thinks it up in her head and brings them out the way she does and she brought up her home screen, showing me the software’s she uses and the purpose of each.

Me, while mentally noting each one of them, i’m further bugged by how unfazed she is about the entire thing, it was like she was not matching my amazement energy, so I was like “do you have any idea how skilled you are and how much people might be willing to pay to get you to create content for them?” and she was like “it’s something anyone can do really”.

This led us into an entire conversation about how NOT mundane and ordinary this is and even trying to draft up a business plan together.

This morning, I wake up and the first thing the Holy Spirit brought to mind is her and He said “people always downplay the gifts I give them because of how good they are at it” and I started to think about it and realised that it is quite true that often we simplify and make ordinary things we can do really well because we think it comes as easy as it does to us to other people.

It is also why it hard to get someone to tell you what they think they are really good at, chances are that they think that everyone else is just as good as them at what they do and so they might not mention it at all or downplay and make it sound really mundane.

The gifts and abilities given to persons by God largely vary, but it is important we are even able to recognise these gifts in us, The Holy spirit is robbed of glory when we downplay His abilities which is peculiar to you as a person. I found myself this morning also evaluating some of the things that come so naturally to me to see if I’ve ignored or downplayed it in anyway just because I think everyone else can do it as easily as I can.

It also made me realise how compliments are also catalysts for abilities and giftings within people, my artistic friend probably has not heard from enough people how awesome her work is and how almost impossible it would be for some of us to replicate some of her work which she thinks anyone can do.

As Christians, part of encouraging and edifying each other is also complimenting. Letting our brothers and sisters know how rare something that comes naturally to them is in the lives of other people around, by doing this, we’re helping them not to downplay the abilities they’ve been gifted with and seek out ways to reach and bless the world through these natural abilities and giftings.

The more used to something you are, the greater the tendency of thinking less about it, but this should never apply to divine deposits in us which we will all one day account for.

Jump on the bandwagon will you? What comes so natural to you that you’re not even giving it a thought? Could it be something you could use to start a business with? or maybe a support group? or simply just organise a social day out with friends where you just teach them whatever it is?

There is no ordinary gifts or abilities, there are only ignorant people who need to become aware of what power lies within them.