Having Gifts Is Nothing If We Don't Use Them

“Moses was a reluctant prophet. Deeply aware in his heart of the need to confront the brutality of the pharaoh in Egypt, God calls out to him: “I have heard the cry of my people and I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out.” But, scripture says, Moses insists, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh … Suppose they do not listen to me … I am slow of speech and tongue. Send someone else!”
 
The Moses story is a charming study. It makes clear how much time it can take to face the fact that something must be done and that we are expected to do it. Does Moses doubt that God was with him? No. Did he doubt that this liberation of the people was God’s will? No. Moses believes both the voice and the vision. But he shows us something very important for our own lives: Lack of faith in God is one thing, but lack of self-confidence can be just as bad.
 
To deny the abilities I’ve been given—thought, insight, wisdom, analysis, understanding, explanation, persuasion—is a virtual sin against creation. It degrades the virtue of humility to a kind of debased self-knowledge. It withholds from the human community the very gifts I have been freely given for its good. Having gifts is nothing if we don’t use them. To praise the Creator for seeding the universe with them is bogus if we ourselves fail to use them to their limits.
 
Most serious of all, this kind of pious worthlessness itself tends to obstruct the prophetic enterprise. And as Moses found out quickly, God does not like the “I am not worthy” argument!
 
It’s time to understand, with Moses, that the God who calls us to our responsibility for the world will also be with us as we shoulder our part in it. That same God will send the help we need, yes, but more than that, faith in that God will make the rough ways smooth.
 
Even our failures, we will come to understand, will be turned to success in the end. Most of all, people pleasing goes when the worthiness argument disappears. We know who we are and why we do what we do, and no amount of self-doubt or breast beating can stop our journey to justice. Then, like Moses, our time comes and we are ready to be a joyful part of humanity’s slow rise to the fullness of itself.

     —from The Time Is Now:A Call to Uncommon Courage by Joan Chittister (Random House)