Podcast Episode 20 – Without Compromise (part 3)
This week’s episode builds on Monday’s article, part three in the series titled, “Without Compromise.” Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Have you struggled with compromise or conformity? That’s the ongoing question we are talking about in this series. Today’s discussion is the third in the series, all of them based on a study of Daniel chapter 1 and corresponding to the articles posted each week on the Leadership Ezra website. The big idea we will be discussing is how you can navigate pressure – specifically, the pressure to compromise or conform in an unhealthy or immoral way – without deviating from your values. It’s really going to be a discussion of how to lead and live with excellence without compromising your faith. And today, that begins with recognizing how God has gifted you.
In between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I got a job as a door-to-door salesman. Here’s what happened. I was paying my own way through college, which meant that during the school year, I had been working about 30 hours a week in a restaurant as a busboy and kitchen helper. It just about paid my bills, but as a minimum wage job, it did little more than that. Well, sometime in the spring of my freshman year, a company came on campus to recruit for summer work. Someone talked me into attending the recruiting presentation, and by the end of it, I was convinced I could make a whole lot more with this company than I could working in the restaurant that summer. So I signed up. The job I signed up for was selling books door to door for 13 weeks. More specifically, selling a 2-volume encyclopedia of knowledge and a New King James Version Study Bible.
So, as soon as my exams ended, I loaded my car and drove to Nashville, Tennessee, for a week of training and inspiration. At the end of that week, I was sent to my territory, which was Sumter, South Carolina. As soon as I arrived, I found a place to live and mapped out my area, the tobacco farmland outside of the side. I proceeded to get up every morning and start driving from house to house, knocking on doors, and asking people if I could show them these books. There is an important piece of information in this that you need to know: I was very much an introverted people-pleaser afraid of rejection. You can imagine that it didn’t take long before I figured out I was not cut out to be a salesman and began regretting my job choice for the summer. In fact, as the weeks went on, it got harder and harder for me, and by about the 10th week – I’m being very transparent here – I was calling my dad every single day, in tears, asking him to help me find the courage and discipline to go out and face another day of this.
In the end, I actually did make enough to pay for my next semester of college, but the point of this story is that I learned a very valuable lesson about what I was NOT good at doing. I had certain skills and abilities that enabled me to do well at some things, but cold sales and knocking on strangers’ doors were most definitely not within my abilities. I refused to quit – that’s just part of who I am – but I finished that summer with the realization that no amount of money was worth a job that hated and didn’t have the ability to do well.
That’s one of the things we learn from Daniel in Daniel chapter 1. God has gifted us each with skills and abilities, and we function best when we operate within those abilities. Now, I think those abilities fall into three different groupings: natural abilities, those that we have been born with (the ones that are part of how God designed and created us from the beginning); unnatural abilities, which I define as those abilities that are not natural to you but that God has specifically given you for a time and a purpose; and spiritual gifts, which were given to us as part of our spiritual nature when we became a part of the family of God through salvation. These three groups are designed by God to work together so that we can perform with excellence when we commit and submit our work to the Lord. That’s what Daniel showed us.
Here’s what you need to take away: Liam Neeson once said in a movie, “What I do have are a very particular set of skills.” And so do you. God has gifted you with spiritual gifts, natural abilities, and unnatural abilities, and He has given you those for a reason. Your responsibility is to accept, hone, and use those gifts to carry out the call He has given you.
The bottom line is that God has given you gifts and abilities, and He has done so for a reason. Daniel used his with such excellence in his obedience to God that he excelled above everyone around him. I would challenge you to do the same.
