Life Through the Eyes of Compassion

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I don’t know if you all have ever heard of a book called “Discovering your God-Given Gifts” by Don and Katie Fortune. It’s an amazing book. I encountered it for the first time in 1997. I attended a woman’s Bible Study at the church I was attending at the time and this was the teaching.

Here is a link to their website Discovering Your Gifts. The book is basically a systematic way of uncovering the gifts that God built into you from the very beginning. The Bible says in Psalms 139:13 that He formed our “inner most parts”(NKJ). The main point is that we are gifted from birth and it is our job to figure out what those gifts are and unleash them for the Kingdom of God. The gifts are according to Romans chapter 12. The Fortunes call these the motivational gifts. By determining your giftings you can look at a number of careers and see if they correlate to your gifting and you can possibly predict your success in that given career or mostly what you are well suited for. It helps you get a road map, so to speak, of how to use your giftings in the business world. I don’t want to focus only on that because that it’s not the only thing you can use the book for.

The book and the tests are sectioned off in 7 different sections according to the gifts listed in Romans 12:4-8. The first 6 chapters speak in general terms about the gifting and how to score your tests.

For our purposes here, I want to look at what the Bible says in Romans 12.

The Bible reads like this:
4) Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5) so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
6) We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.
If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. (Perceiver)
7) If it is serving, let him serve; (Server)
if it is teaching, let him teach; (Teacher)
8) if it is encouraging, let him encourage; (Exhorter)
if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; (Giver)
if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; (Administrator)
if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. (Compassion)

These are the seven gifts and in each section there are a variety of questions and explanations so you have plenty of information there. You answer the questions based on whether you always (5), mostly (4), usually (3), sometimes (2), seldom (1) and Never (0) think or react in a certain way that indicates that you favor this gifting. Then you score your answers in each section.

I just really love this book. I think it is a really great way to think about how you see and react to the world around you. I remember the first time I took the and I though … God is so smart, look what He has given me; I am so perfectly gifted for what He has called me to do. I was so excited. Then life happened! I got away from the things of God many times over the last few years, something I am not proud of at all. It turns out that pride is exactly my problem and has been for a long time. God really had to work with quite an interesting mix of issues in me. He is not done yet!!! Hallelujah!!!!! I thank Him that I am the “apple of His eye” (Psalms 17:8).

I recently went back through this book and took the test again. I am beginning to prepare my curriculum for United In Truth and Love’s first educational project at the local Rescue Mission. I will be going hopefully next week to talk with the chaplain who is a good friend of mine and see what he’ll allow me to do.

It has been more than 10 years since I took the test for the first time. I tired really hard not to cheat, (/laughing out loud), as if there is such a thing. My giftings are; first compassion at a score of 93, then administrator at 89, then teacher at 83. I also score pretty high on Exhorter (82) and Perceiver (81). However, it is the first three gifts that you look at most closely.

Your first gifting, according to the Fortunes, is the one that will color every other area of your giftings as well as the rest of your life. My first gift, compassion, truly does color or really engulf my world. That is why I decided to write about this today.
Seeing life through the eyes of compassion is a glorious and torturous road. While I always tend to see the good in people, I hurt when people hurt. I recently came across something on my Face Book wall that led me to a site about child abuse; well a child that was killed by the mother’s boyfriend, and other horrible acts against children that I couldn’t even read about. I do support the prosecution of these offenders.

Now, if I ran this country it would be hunting them down like the dogs they are and delivering death by slow torture. I recognize that is a feeling… not that I am called to do that nor to support it, so I do support the laws set forth and for those offenders to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The organization is this, please visit on Face Book and show your support @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/Universal-Child-Abuse-Prevention/16482990412?ref=ts&sk=wall

And there are dozens of pages on Face Book to support and like to Stop Child Abuse. Anyway, I had to look through a bunch more of them and just feel so sad for these kids again.
I have been sick for days. I’ve been thinking about, praying and interceding for these children. When I worked in CPS oh so many years ago, I was constantly plagued by these stories. They just make me sick. I mean really heart sick. I can’t understand it; I can’t wrap my head around why someone would perpetrate such horrid acts against children. Yet, at the time, I also found myself in a moral conundrum when the father of two girls on my case load wrote me a letter because he believed I was the reason that his children did not write him. He sexually abused those girls. That is why they didn’t write to him. Oh my… and I was moved not to be angry at him, but to see him through the eyes of God with compassion for him as well. It was a tremendous effort on my part to write him a letter explaining why his children did not write him. He mentioned that he had been saved, born again, and then commanded me, in Jesus name, to allow his children to write him.

WOW!! That was one of the hardest things I ever did. It took everything I had in me to not rip him a new you know what. My anger and disgust with him was threatening to come out with every letter typed on the page. However, I am sure that the letter came across as a very sterile and unemotional explanation about how it was good that he found God and that he was forgiven, but that he had to try and understand that people did not work the same way that God did. With people it takes time to forgive and heal. That is what I told him and then I let him know that he could continue to write letters to the children and that all his letters were saved in their files. I assured him that when they turned 18 all the letters would be given to them. That was that.
But, that is a life through the eyes of compassion, always trying to see the best in others, to focus on the good in others even if there are a lot of negative things: to try and live a good life, the best possible life and treat others as I would like to be treated. It is not always an easy road and I am very hard on myself. I want to save the world and live with the frustration everyday of not even coming close to that lofty goal and never will. To make a difference somewhere in someone’s life is the goal I really hold closely. I can’t not help it, turn it off or not think about it. It doesn’t work that way.

I am thankful for all of the gifts God has given me and the destiny he has planned for me. With my other gifting Administration, I have to watch myself that I don’t get bossy. I have been accused of that more than once and also being very pushy when it comes to my clients being treated well. I just see how things should be working. I get extremely frustrated with people who try to tell me what to do… oh man this is like that hardest thing for me. In my last job with a supervisor who was not gifted (AT ALL) to lead anyone (not even a dog in my estimation)… everyday was agonizing with her. I had to force myself to come under her submission and I constantly wanted to wring her neck. But, I struggled with myself knowing that this was yet another lesson that God was taking me through so that His will could be done, not my own. I forced myself to do as He had commanded me and just clashed the whole way along and suffered through it. It’s harder to love the unlovely and have grace for those that really rub us the wrong way. But, we are also called to this.

Now, on the eve of filing the paperwork for my non-profit, I am thinking of these things. I am thankful that God has brought me out of many of these old habits and ideas. I know I am not done yet and that is fine with me. I don’t get to pick and choose anyway. I just love God and desire to unleash this force within me that desires nothing more than to care for those who are hurting, hungry, homeless, addicted, sick and thirsty. And I will do all of that in due time.
I encourage anyone who is interested to get this book. There is a test for children as well. I think knowing what your children’s gifts are you can provide them opportunities early in life to operate in those gifts. I think for us adults it can bring some revelation about ourselves and help us to also operate in our giftings in as many ways as possible.

I’m saying a Big HORRAH today for getting the book, “Non-Profit Kit for DUMMIES” by Stan Hutton and Frances Phillips!!!!!!!!!! I had to make a special trek all the way across town for this one. But, I am so thankful… I don’t know how to write that so you can really get the emotional part of that, I am just so happy!!!!! For 13 years I have kept this in my heart. I knew when I came back from Oklahoma that I was to begin this part of my journey.

So off we go, hold on tight I will be taking you all along with me!!!!!