Standing On Buried Talents

Most of us are familiar with the parable of the talents. We are each given many gifts and talents in this life, used for our own refining or the improving of others. And, we know we will be judged for how we used them. Did we bury some along the way? Where did we choose to take our talents? Where did those talents take us? The intention of these talents is to prove our faithfulness and to receive with usury. They are meant to be used!

We are each given natural abilities and inclinations that lead us one way or another. The short-sighted and prideful view these as evidences of superiority over another, however they fail to see that these are given by The Lord to try us individually, and he will judge us all individually by how we used those things. Even our weaknesses are from Him to teach us the lessons we need to learn, and to give us experience to help others learn as well. As we progress through life, we can see these weaknesses become strengths. How have we been using our talents? Do we hesitate to use them?

Why do we bury some talents yet show others?
Often times, we hold ourselves back to avoid hurting our pride. What we fail to understand is that "when performance is measured, performance improves". It takes honesty to acknowledge when another's strengths are greater than your weaknesses. It takes humility to recognize when another's strengths are greater than your own. Does a tree judge another by how tall it is, or how many storms it has endured? No. It just keeps growing. So it should be with us. While we are not perfect in what we do, and we may not even be good yet, a budding talent begins just as small as any other. When yesterday's seedlings have not become a forest, do we trample them down? Do we give heed to the others that will try?

We should put envy far from us, and desire the welfare of others. If we truly care about others, we invest ourselves in them. What we give shall be meted to us again. Whether in this life or the next, that will be true of just about everything. Not only should we seek to increase our talents, we should help others increase theirs. We should give just as The Lord gives us. By giving opportunity and experience we can cultivate learning and development of talents in others. 

Much of our life looking back is the sum total of the people we know and the experiences we have. While we have our own will to move ourselves through our circumstances, we are still agents reacting to our circumstances. In helping another, we can have an influence of positivity or negativity in their life. If you are not affecting someone else for good, you are affecting yourself any better. That which you keep will always be taken, but that which you give shall always be treasured. Where will you choose to take your talents? Where will those talents take you?

How have we used the greatest gift of all? The Atonement of Jesus Christ is infinite. It is eternal in nature. How have we chosen to use it? Where has it taken us? Jesus Christ has suffered for all. He knows our pains, our weaknesses, and our frustrations. In Him they have an end. Nowhere in the parable of the talents, nor in the gift we have all been given, does the master expect to be repaid. We are merely to accept what is given us, and use it. This is the most important talent we are to give an accounting for, how well we accept and apply the atonement of Jesus Christ. Not only are our debts paid, but Christ has made an investment in each of us. We may take what has been given us and build upon it, receiving 'grace for grace', or we can bury it. Likewise it is the greatest talent we may share, that of testimony of the cleansing and enabling power of grace through Jesus Christ. I hope we may all do these things, and one day hear these words: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."