There is a teaching that has done the rounds of the church for a long time about redemptive gifts. The idea is that every one has one of the seven gifts listed in Romans 12. These gifts are ruler, servant, teacher, exhorter, mercy, giver and prophet. There is a variety of teaching about this online including some videos on YouTube by Arthur Burk. After going through this it became obvious that the best fit for me was the redemptive gift of teacher.
This explained a lot of things for example how hard I find it to write a short account of something. It even explained why there are so many artificial flowers around my home. As well as why most of the wallpaper in my home has a leaf texture on it. he teacher gift has a special affinity with vegetation so it made sense.
After I had realised this I made a list of all the flowers in my home. It soon became obvious that most of them were liked white, cream or grey flowers in white or grey vases. Grey flowers? Well think of lavender as being a sort of grey purple. Another thing that particularly resonates with me are sleek, uncluttered white ornaments and grey vases. It has been a strange experience finally recognising what I really like and accepting that it is OK not to like bright red, yellow even bright purple flowers. They quite simply are not my style.
My design and what I do
Something else about my design is that I am a starter rather than a finisher. I can come up with hundreds of ideas a day but then never put one of them into action. A creative person like me is often full of ideas but can struggle to see things through to the end. I can come up with a plan to get things going but it is hard for me to stick to it as there are always new ideas coming along.
It is hardly surprising then that when I did a test to help me work out what category I fall into when it comes to ministry gifts that I did described me as a teacher apostle. A teacher shares information that has been organised and arranged in such a way that it is easy to digest. An apostle gets out front and starts projects
This test for which of the gifts listed in Ephesians 4 are most evident in my life proved something that I have known for years i.e. the last thing that I am is a shepherd. The test results put shepherd at the bottom of the list by a long way.