Unboxing Spiritual Gifts
One thing I love about the Easter season is the fact that our Catholic lectionary walks us day-by-day through the Acts of the Apostles. This book puts on display for us what post-Resurrection life is supposed to look like, and the whole thing starts with Pentecost, the moment when the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit and were emboldened to move from hiding to engaging in the mission Jesus had entrusted to them.
Isn't it interesting that Jesus specifically instructed his disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit to come? He knew that they would need this Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts that come with Him to accomplish their mission. And the same is true for us. We, too, share in the mission of Jesus to put on display the nature and character of God, and we can't adequately do this without the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
I am encouraged by the growing interest I see in the spiritual gifts today, but I also think they have a tendency to get boxed in, limited. Oftentimes we think of ourselves as having this or that gift, and gravitate towards “staying in our lane,” which means we attempt to access only the gifts that we believe we possess. In actuality, however, there is much more available to us through the Holy Spirit than we may realize. When we partner with the Holy Spirit, we are collaborating with the fullness of the Spirit of God, who is not a fragmented person; He is whole, and the power behind every gift is contained in Him. I’d like to suggest that when we are connected to the Holy Spirit, we are not meant to operate within the confines of singular gifts, but rather in docility to how the Spirit wishes to move in that particular moment. In other words, our relationship with the Holy Spirit opens up the possibility for each of us to access any of the spiritual gifts as a situation demands and the Spirit allows.
I think this is the next step that we are called to take as a Church regarding the spiritual gifts: to move beyond the assumption that we have limited access to a small handful of spiritual gifts, and to begin encouraging exploration of the full range of gifts available in the life of each and every follower of Jesus, so that the Church may be equipped with the tools needed to advance the mission of Jesus in any circumstance.
So in this article, I want to talk about what the spiritual gifts are, why we have permission to pursue and develop all of the spiritual gifts, and how we can go about that pursuit.
SPIRITUAL GIFTS
The term “spiritual gifts” indicates the variety of ways that the Holy Spirit moves in and through one person for the benefit of another. The first feature to notice about spiritual gifts is that they are for others. As St. Paul puts it, “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit” (1 Cor 12:7), that is, “for building up the church” (1 Cor 14:12). So if I am exercising a spiritual gift, the primary benefit of that gift is not meant for me, but for someone else. It is a means by which the Holy Spirit empowers me to extend God’s blessing to others.
But rather than being some general form of do-goodery, spiritual gifts have the further distinction that they are supernatural in their origin, in their operation, and in their impact. Let’s take these in turn.
Supernatural Origin
In 1 Corinthians 12, St. Paul lists some examples of spiritual gifts: the expression of wisdom and knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, varieties of tongues, and interpretation of tongues. But speaking as he is to a group of Christians who live in a polytheistic culture, Paul makes sure to emphasize that these spiritual gifts all have their origin in the “same Spirit” – “there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone” (1 Cor 12:6, emphasis added). Since the gifts each come from the Spirit, they are supernatural in their origin, and the grace to exercise any spiritual gift is made available entirely at the Spirit’s initiative.
Supernatural Operation
This leads us to operation. To exercise any spiritual gift requires a collaboration between the person and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit makes the grace available, but the person exercising the gift interacts with the Spirit to cooperate with that grace. This means that we are participating in a supernatural act when we exercise the spiritual gifts. One of the best analogies I know of for this dynamic is to liken the spiritual gifts to sails on a ship. Sailors can raise and lower the sails any time they want, but they can’t make the wind blow. Similarly, our actions can’t force the Holy Spirit to move. For example, I can choose to pray for healing for someone any time I want, but only when the Spirit “blows” (John 3:8) can I truly be said to be operating in the spiritual gift of healing.
Supernatural Impact
When the Spirit does make the grace for that spiritual gift present, then I should expect to see my exercise of the gift have supernatural impact. It should produce results that are beyond what is possible in the natural — effects that are disproportionate to their apparent causes. The spiritual gift of healing will produce miraculous recoveries of health. The spiritual gift of prophecy will forge a path for breakthrough in someone’s life. The spiritual gift of knowledge (or words of knowledge) will provide critical information at a critical time and shift hearts towards a greater receptiveness to God's grace.
SPIRITUAL GIFTS VS. CHARISMS
There has been a growing interest of late in discerning one’s spiritual gifts, or more precisely, one’s charisms. This has borne much beautiful fruit in the Church and in the empowerment of the laity in particular. At the same time, this focus on discerning charisms has had, I think, an unintended consequence, which is to give people a too-narrow view regarding the accessibility or availability of spiritual gifts.
So what is the difference between a spiritual gift and a charism? Sometimes these words are used interchangeably, but when used in its more specific sense, the term charism is used to indicate when a spiritual gift manifests more frequently, consistently, and with greater impact in someone’s life. In other words, when someone frequently sees people healed through their prayers, we say they have a charism of healing. Or when someone frequently leads people into intimate encounters with God through their music, we say they have a charism of music.
Discerning charisms can be a valuable tool for making decisions about where to invest your energies, or those of the members of a team. If someone has a strong track record of healing, it makes sense that you would want them to serve on your healing ministry team. If someone’s music frequently leads people into encounters with the Lord, you’ll want to create more opportunities for them to offer their musical gift.
But an emphasis on discerning charisms can often lead to a restrictive view of the spiritual gifts. It is common in our church culture to carry a you-have-it-or-you-don’t kind of mentality towards the charisms. In other words, many end up drawing the erroneous conclusion that, if they don't have a charism for healing, for instance, then they can’t exercise the spiritual gift of healing. But this is a false conclusion! Remember that the word charism only indicates when a spiritual gift manifests more frequently, consistently, and with greater impact in someone’s life. It says nothing about whether you can or cannot, in a given moment, exercise a particular spiritual gift.
As a matter of fact, any Christian, at any moment, has the potential to exercise any spiritual gift. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is the origin of every spiritual gift, and He can choose to impart the grace for any gift at any moment He pleases. Another way to say it is that the Holy Spirit carries all of the gifts in Himself, and since we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us, this means we have access to any of the spiritual gifts through our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
FROM DISCERNING TO DEVELOPING
What I would like to propose for us in the Church is a shift in emphasis from discerning spiritual gifts to developing spiritual gifts. There are two reasons for this.
The first is simply that discerning gifts before we’ve put effort into developing them is putting the cart before the horse. Discerning requires looking back over my history to recognize patterns of how the Holy Spirit has moved in and through me. But if I have never attempted to pray for others’ healing, how could I possibly discern whether I have a healing charism? There has to be a history of experience to discern, so the logical first step is to begin by exploring a variety of opportunities to exercise spiritual gifts and build that history with the Lord.
But the second reason is more important. While I may have a history of God moving frequently, consistently, and with greater impact through one gift in my life, our “charisms” are not static realities where we each get our three or four and then we’re done. Every Christian has an invitation from the Lord to develop a familiarity and comfort with exercising each of the spiritual gifts. They are meant to be tools in our tool belt that we can utilize as the need arises. It’s not that we can obtain the fruit (like healing) any time we want by our own volition, but every Christian should feel comfortable praying for someone who is ill, for instance, making space for the Holy Spirit to move in healing at that moment.
St. Paul himself encouraged the Corinthians to seek after the gifts of the Spirit, writing, “Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts” (1 Cor 12:31), and again, “Strive eagerly for the spiritual gifts, above all that you may prophesy” (1 Cor 14:1). What Paul is saying is that we do not have to resign ourselves to passively waiting for God to give us a spiritual gift or charism – we have permission to pursue it!
GETTING MISSION-FOCUSED
I would even go so far as to say that love demands that we pursue the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the world needs what the Holy Spirit has to offer. There are multitudes of hungry, hurting, broken people who desperately need to be touched by God's love and power. And so it is an act of love to ready ourselves to respond in whatever way the situation in front of us demands, and not to concern ourselves so much with whether we have this or that charism. In other words, when we get focused on our mission of extending God’s love to others, it is only natural that we would seek the most powerful means of accomplishing that mission: an intimate partnership with the Holy Spirit through the full range of spiritual gifts that are available to us.
Seen in this light, seeking after the gifts of the Spirit is not selfish or prideful; it is the most generous thing we can do. In fact, St. Paul’s two injunctions to “strive eagerly for the spiritual gifts” serve as bookends to his famous hymn of love in 1 Corinthians 13 (“Love is patient, love is kind...”). Paul is emphasizing that love is to be the driving force behind the exercise of all spiritual gifts. Yes, it’s possible that someone could approach them in very self-seeking ways, and when they do, they are nothing more than “noisy gongs” and “clashing cymbals.” But if love remains the focus, then it is love itself that will impel us to pursue the spiritual gifts, to develop in ourselves the means of extending God’s grace to a broken and hurting world around us.
PURSUING THE GIFTS
So what does it look like to actively pursue and develop a spiritual gift? We can’t develop spiritual gifts in the strict sense like we can with natural gifts. We can develop a natural gift (like playing piano) by putting in the effort day by day, and in doing so we are guaranteed growth and improvement. But we can never force the Holy Spirit’s hand when it comes to spiritual gifts.
What we can do is practice “putting up our sails.” We can practice tuning in to what the Holy Spirit is saying or doing in a particular moment, and we can practice responding to what we sense from Him. We can’t make the wind blow, but if we've gotten in the habit of putting up our sails, we are more likely to catch the wind when it does!
Some of the spiritual gifts lend themselves more easily to this kind of practice – gifts like healing, prophecy, and words of knowledge. In practicing these gifts, we have a more specific target and the opportunity to get concrete feedback on our attempts to exercise those gifts. When we pray for someone to get healed, for instance, we can ask if their pain has subsided, or if they can move their body in a way they previously couldn't move. When we attempt to deliver a prophetic word to someone, we can ask if our words carried any particular weight or meaning for them. By taking these risks, we build a history with God and begin to recognize more clearly how He speaks to us or steers us in our efforts to express His love to others.
The ultimate goal is simply to be God's ready vessel for whatever need He places in front of us. We need not limit ourselves to a handful of spiritual gifts, even if there are, in fact, ways that the Holy Spirit uses us more frequently, consistently, and with greater impact. Any Christian, at any moment, has the potential to exercise any gift of the Holy Spirit. So the most important question in any moment then is not, "How has God used me in the past?” but “How does He want to use me right now?” The more we cultivate a familiarity with the full range of spiritual gifts, the more we will be ready to respond to what love demands in the moment.