Lessons from Tink

Today, Eden & I rented the new "Tinkerbell" movie from Redbox. Although, not a particularly spectacular movie, I felt as though it had a rather nice message that I ran through a spiritual filter.

Tinkerbell is "born" into the fairy world and is supernaturally shown what her talent is. It is revealed that she is a "tinker" fairy who has a gift for building, fixing, & "tinkering." She quickly becomes disappointed with her lot in life when she sees & hears about all the "magical" talents that the other fairies have and learns that although they all get to travel to the mainland to help with the changing of the seasons, tinker fairies stay behind. Tinkerbell decides that she doesn't want the talent she has and attempts to "learn" a variety of new talents. Every time she attempts to be taught a different talent, it ends disastrously! Eventually, after destroying all preparations for spring, she uses her "tinkering" talents to save the day. She ends up rejoicing in and appreciating the talent she was given.

I think a lot of times we as people, and we as Christians are disappointed with the talents and gifts we are given by God. We look at what we do and assign it little value and we look at what others can do and the gifts and talents that God gave them and we decide that we want those gifts instead. And oftentimes, like Tinkerbell, we try to fight against how we were made and against the spiritual tasks we were divinely chosen to perform and we try to "learn" another talent and we try to squeeze our mercy-gifted selves into a prophesy-gifted mold with disastrous results. It seems to me that many churches/Christians push certain talents/gifts/jobs over others and as a result there are many talented & gifted stewards of God working aimlessly at spiritual jobs that they were not purposed for. If God made me a "tinker fairy" and not a "water fairy" than it is most likely a waste for me to spend a majority of my time trying to put dew drops on a spiderweb. (If you catch my drift.)

In this mixed-up world we live in, it seems like we often concentrate a majority of our time trying to become adequate in the areas we are weakest when it would probably be more profitable for us to work at becoming proficient in the areas in which we show aptitude. While I think that it is often important to be semi well-rounded in our knowledge & abilities so as to be able to function well in society...I believe that to carry this idea over where our spiritual purposes are concerned is a serious mistake. God has given us all our own unique set of inherent talents when we are born and similarly, He gives us all our own unique set of spiritual gifts when we are born-again. We were not all given the same specific purposes and we were not all given the same specific talents & gift. However, just like in Tinkerbell's world, certain talents & gifts are often societally assigned more value or less value based on the outward appearance of it, but in the "Greater Picture" everyone's purpose has great value, and every job no matter how big & important or small & insignificant it seems, is very significant to the One who designed us for the task.

What I learned from Tinkerbell is that my God-given talents & gifts are a glorious thing and that if I use those talents & gifts for the purposes for which they were created, then there is no reason for me to try to be someone & something I am not.