Can Someone Else Be in Charge?

Are you tired of volunteering to bake the cookies, calling the parent list, organizing the family reunion, loading the presentation into the computer, leading the workgroup and shoveling the walkway out front?

Do you ever shout, “Please, can someone else be in charge?”

I’ve been there. I shirk for a while, pretend to be too busy, and flick on the television or sit in the backyard thumbing through magazines or I play a game on my phone. But it doesn’t take long before this mindless life works against me. I’m not refreshed. I’m not more at ease. I’m miserable.

“Acting small doesn’t do a thing for the world. Minimizing your talents wastes the investments that others have placed in you. Playing it safe doesn’t impact your workplace, your school or your family. When you say, “I’m nothing special, “you’re actually questioning your God-given talents, the belief that others have in you, and the trust of those that you influence.

“When you don’t step up you deny a certain part of your personhood. It’s like revolting against your very DNA. You can dye your hair, but you’re still a brunette. You can buy special colorized lenses, but your eyes are still hazel. You can sit back and play dormant like everyone else, but it’s killing you on the inside. **”

You don’t bring pleasure to God by trying to be someone else. Anytime you reject any part of yourself, you are rejecting his sovereignty in creating you. “You have no right to argue with your Creator. You are merely a clay pot shaped by a potter. The clay doesn’t ask, ‘Why did you make me this way?’” (Isaiah 45:9 CEV).

So, the answer is “no.” No one else can do what you are supposed to do.

It this you, too? Do you find it impossible to run from your God-given talents?

** From Make a Difference: Growth in Leadership, by Little, Jackson, and Rupert.