Don’t Bury Your Talent

We recently had a talent show at our church. I did not attend. I was at work. My wife and children went, and were so impressed that they showed me the highlights on YouTube. This particular talent show was the final week after a series of talent shows in competition for a $10,000 scholarship to the college of the winner’s choice. I was impressed by what I saw. And a little heartbroken. Why? Because these kids can sing, write music, play instruments, etc., and I’m afraid that they are going to go to college and become accountants or something.

Don’t go to college and ditch your dreams for a more practical profession. Sure, someone has to be a doctor. And there are those who dream of being a doctor. They don’t dream of having prestige, an M.D. stuck to the end of their names and a large paycheck. They actually love the idea of being a doctor. They would want to be a doctor even if “doctor” had no more prestige or money attached to it than “mechanic.” There are people who love working on cars, and dream of becoming mechanics. If that’s your dream, do it. On the other hand, lots of kids dream to be actors, directors, writers, singers and musicians. These are the kind of dreams that are abandoned as impractical. More people struggle every day to become an actor, a musician or a writer than there are slots available. So someone is going to be disappointed. But these jobs are more important than most people realize.

What impacts culture the most and the fastest? Music, movies and television. If more Christians were part of the mainstream media, the culture would be pushed toward a more Christ-centered culture. Too many of us have an Amish view of life: “Let the heathens enjoy their music and we will enjoy our music without any electricity (I threw that part about electricity in just to make the metaphor work). We need to start loving Jesus in public, and I’m not sure how public having our own subculture is. I wonder how many people were introduced to Jesus through POD versus how many were introduced to Him through dcTalk. And I’m not talking about altar calls at their concerts. That’s just a step in the evangelistic process. I’m talking about planting the seed in as many minds/hearts as possible. I’m talking about affecting an entire culture. The actors, writers, directors, singers and musicians are the people who affect our culture.

Christian kids need to fill these positions. Let the non-Christians be the disappointed ones. If you have an unrealistic dream and you don’t have any dependents, you can chase that unrealistic dream. Start early. Work hard. The best at any job are never the lazy ones. And the less likely you are to break into that profession, the harder you have to work at it. Take what talent and desires God has given you, and don’t let anything push those away from you. There will be a point at which you will have to settle for a job to support your family, but that is not as soon as most people think it is. It is not right out of high school, or even right out of college. Spend some time trying to do the remarkable thing before you settle into the regular world, filled with cubicles and stain-resistant rugs.

My wife asked me why I was crying when I was watching the video with the winner of that talent show and when I told her, she scoffed at me delicately. She is probably correct to scoff. Just because the winner of the talent show is going to college doesn't mean she is not going to use her talent. She could still become a worship leader or a professional recording artist. And it could even be God’s plan for her to become an accountant. And if she loves accounting as much as she loves to sing, it probably is. I just hope that she never buries her talents in the dirt to settle for something practical.

Brave

I have been brave. I'm brave all the time. For example, I interview musicians for ONCOURSE Magazine. I have been doing this for two years now, and I am terrified every time. I can't sleep the night before I do an interview. I can't eat the day I do the interview. All I can manage to do within two hours of an interview is pace like a caged animal. But I always do the interview.

Doing an interview over the phone is a pretty low-risk scenario. I'm sure there are those of you who cannot believe that anyone could be afraid of talking to a stranger on the telephone. I was thinking today about something that a couple of kids in the Bible did that would have terrified even the boldest of us.

The virgin Mary had a baby boy, and she and Joseph named him Jesus.

We tend to think of Mary in supernatural terms, but she wasn't supernatural. She wasn't an angel, and she wasn't perfect. She was probably 14, and she probably prayed a lot, but otherwise she was just a plain old kid. Think of the terrible things girls in your high school go through when one of them gets pregnant. Mary potentially had it even worse. She could have been stoned to death.

Joseph was still a teenager himself, and when he found out Mary was pregnant, he decided to dump her. He knew it wasn't his kid. He hadn't touched her, and he didn't want anybody thinking he had. But the angel came and told him to marry her. So, Joseph obeyed. What did people--Mary and Joseph's parents and friends and neighbors--think? That Mary was still a virgin and had become pregnant with God's child through a miracle? That Joseph was not the father? Not likely. No matter what they told no matter how many people, everyone was going to believe that Joseph got a little too close to Mary a little too soon. Now they could both be stoned to death.

The trip to Bethlehem on a donkey doesn't sound too bad. But remember how old these young adults are? If they were to make the pilgrimage to Bethlehem today, they still would be riding on donkeys; they would've been too young to get driver's licenses. And they would be more likely to meet a highway robber on the road than a highway patrolman. 

They got to Bethlehem and had to deliver the child in a manger. The Bible doesn't mention any doctors or midwives. Joseph was the one telling Mary to push. A teenage boy delivering a baby in a cave is the kind of heroic news on "Good Morning America" these days.

And then, after a couple of years in Bethlehem, the wise men came. That night, Joseph, still a teenager, was told by an angel to flee from Bethlehem to Egypt. Now the teens were immigrants. It's starting to sound like a show on the WB. 

Mary and Joseph were brave. They were teenagers being used by God to change the whole world. Even the history of the whole world. They were changing not only the future, but the past. Everything the Old Testament said about the Passover lamb or the son of David was going to be understood in a whole new way. They didn't exactly understand the rewards, and they knew they were risking death, but they continued to trust God every step of the way. They were brave, godly teenagers. And they raised God's son.