Red Lip Society

My Pastor said something yesterday that really challenged me! He said, “What do you do every day to fan the flame of the gift that God has placed inside of you?”

2 Timothy 1:6 says,

“For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands,”

God has placed a GIFT inside each of us. One that He gave us to fulfill His good and perfect will. That’s how highly He thinks of you!

I recently heard Rick Warren say, “God made us all differently so that everything would get done.”  My mouth just fell open!  If everyone was a worship leader who would preach?  Or if no one was gifted at teaching, who would stand at the front of the classroom?

My husband tells me I’m gifted at being sweet to people…but I’m not sure that is a gift. Haha!

Whatever our gift may be, we have to keep cultivating it.  You have to water things and make sure they get plenty of sunshine for them to grow. Sometimes you have to weed it and sometimes you have to throw a little manure on it.

If you are in the medical field you need to keep yourself up to date on all the new advances in Medicine. Maybe you are a teacher and are always studying things on child development and how they learn. If you are a writer, you should be writing. Whatever it is that you do, you should always be practicing it and learning about it.

If you follow me on Instagram (@scarlettkeen), you may have seen my story about what I am doing for the next 30 days. I’m calling it #ownyourminutes and it is just me being accountable for my time. I started on August 1st and for 30 days I am filling out the calendar on my phone completely with things I need to get done. I am terrible at managing my time properly.

My life has never had a real need for time management, but more and more my life is filling up with things that are important to me. Some of them just come with the everyday ins and outs of married life and work. Others are things I feel like God wants on my plate. I have told Him to use all of me. I don’t want anything left in my quiver on the day that I stand before the Throne. I want to have used all of my gifts and talents. Every. Last. One. It isn’t fair for me to tell God that and then not be good with my time.

#ownyourminutes was actually inspired by my blog post, “My cup is empty: call me Martha.” If you haven’t read it, it is just about how I have basically been running myself ragged and not making time for what is important.

If I am not taking care of me and I’m exhausting myself, I can’t run the race that God is placing before me. And I am like a Kentucky race horse, quivering in the starting gate to run!

I have just started this accountability for myself, but I am already feeling more productive and less tired. I can’t wait to see how I am feeling about things at the end of thirty days.

This is just a step I am taking that will help me fan the flame and stir up the gifts that God has placed inside of me. I have also been journaling my thoughts on a regular basis just because I enjoy writing. I don’t know that anything will ever come of it, but I enjoy it.

There is so much joy and freedom when you are operating within the vain and gifts for which you were created to operate.  That’s where you find that you are not suffering from “burn out”.  That’s where you will find yourself feeling successful and fulfilled.  That’s where passion grows!

Drop me a comment below and tell me what you do to fan your flame. I would love to hear about it!