ENNOBLE TALENT BY EXCELLENCE

“…not every talented person gets to be president! ...Indeed, everyone who has found his way to the White House has benefitted from the combined talents of many supportive people. Those individuals may be called “Mr President,” but they would never have heard this salutation without the help of others in a wide variety of talent areas…

The point is clear: …We cannot all be President Lincoln, but perhaps we can be an excellent campaign manager (without whom, Lincoln surely would never have reached the limelight). Whatever job you have, it can be ennobled by excellence as you apply the talents the Lord has given you. The poet Longfellow once commented, “The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do.”

The Old Testament teaches: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). The New Testament echoes this principle: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23). You cannot apply your talents fully if you are distracted by envy of others’ talents. Every president, CEO or gifted person with an “out front” job is always searching for talented people to serve in a variety of positions with him or her. You will not often lose a job by working hard within your talent area; you may lose many by abandoning yourself to envy.

Talent…is not limited to the more visible gifts and it is not limited by our lifestyles….There are very few jobs that cannot use some degree of the talent you have. Martin Luther King expressed it this way: “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’”