courage to develop our talents - Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Courage comes from God. Fear and doubt do not.

A favorite quote of mine is “What you are is God’s gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”

The challenge in this life is to take what we have been given and do the most we can with it. Everyone has challenges. Everyone has blessings.

To reach your potential you have to attack. Attack without the fear of failure.

My redshirt year in college while at the Olympic Training Center I saw a quote that really hit me. The quote was from Olympic wrestling champion Jeff Blatnick. The quote read “I learned to win by learning to lose; that is, not being afraid to lose.”

To me that means to reach your greatest potential, you can’t be worried about making mistakes or hindered by a fear of failure. So often we are our own enemy instead of an ally. You should be your own greatest ally in your quest to see what you can become in this life.

As the saying goes….He that isn’t willing to take risks, takes the greatest risk of all.

No one has ever accomplished anything great without taking a risk. If we aren’t willing to use the talents that we have worked so hard to develop and enhance, why have them?

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

In fact, God expects us to take our talent and work hard to develop it. We will be accountable for the gifts that we have been given as shown in Jesus’s “Parable of the Talents” as told by Elder Rasband.

“Jesus told the story of a master who gave each of his three servants a sum of money.
The amounts were set according to each servant’s previously demonstrated capabilities. The man then left for a long time. When he returned, he asked each of these servants to report what he had done with the money.
The first two servants revealed they had doubled his investment. “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,” was the master’s reply (Matt. 25:21; see also Matt. 25:23).
The third servant then came trembling before his master. He had already heard what the others had reported and knew that he could not give a similar report. “I was afraid,” the servant said, “and went and hid thy talent in the earth” (Matt. 25:25). The master was upset. “Thou wicked and slothful servant,” he said. Then he commanded, “Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents” (Matt. 25:26, 28).
The Savior then gave the interpretation of the parable: Those who obtain other talents receive more talents in abundance. But those who do not obtain other talents shall lose even the talents they had initially (see Matt. 25:28–29).”

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