Don’t Bury Your Talent
"For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him." Matthew 25:29 (NIV)
In the Parable of the Talents, a very wealthy man was going to go on a trip. He called his three servants together and told them that he would be gone for a long time and that he was leaving them in charge of all of his wealth. He divided up his wealth and gave it to the three servants. To the first servant, he gave five talents. Now, that might not sound like much to you, but in Jesus' day, that was a lot of money. To the second servant, he gave two talents. Not as much as the first servant received, but still a large sum of money. To the third servant, he gave one talent. Even one talent was worth quite a lot!
The first servant took the five talents his master had given him and put it to work and earned five more talents. The second also invested his two talents wisely and earned two more talents. The third servant took his one talent and buried it in the ground for safe keeping. When the master returned, he was very pleased when the first two servants told him that they had doubled his money. "Well done," he said. "Because you had been faithful with what I have given you, I will give you much more." "How about you?" he asked the third servant. "What did you do with the money that I left with you?" The third servant said to the master, "I knew that you were a hard man and I was afraid, so I went out and hid your treasure in the ground so that it would be safe. See, here it is."
The master was angry. "You are a wicked and lazy servant. You could have at least put my money in the bank where it would earn more." He then took the one talent from the lazy servant and gave it to the one who had ten talents.
In this Parable of the Talents, God is the Master and you and I are his servants. The talents that the master gave to his servants in this story were in the form of money. But God has given us talents too, hasn't He? God created each of us with special gifts and He expects us to use those gifts for the purpose for which He gave them to us.
Let us take a Frisbee as an example. Pretend for a moment that you do not know what it is and that you have never seen one before. You might think it was a dinner plate... or a hat... or perhaps a tool for digging in the sand. It could be just about anything, but it isn't. It is a Frisbee and the person who created the Frisbee created it for a purpose. The purpose of a Frisbee is to fly! The Frisbee isn't very impressive to look at, is it? In a world full of high-tech electronic toys, it is pretty low on the totem pole. But boy, can it fly!
Sometimes you and I may look at the talents that God has given to others and think that God hasn't given us very much talent. We might even be tempted to hide our talent. It's much easier and faster to bury our talents than to use them. Using our talents requires time, effort, patience, money, energy, leaving our comfort zone, etc. But when we use our God-given talent to be all that God intended for us to be... boy, can we fly!
One of my favorite authors once wrote: “You have often thought: ‘If I had been in another position in life, and had had the advantages that many others have had, I might have had a larger capital to invest for my Lord.’ The Lord knew all about this matter when He selected you for the work He has given you to do. In God’s beautiful arrangement, the one talent may be increased by use, even becoming ten. And ever remember that God will accept according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not. (see 2 Corinthians 8:12) God has given you your talents. He has chosen you to bear responsibilities, not because you had a thorough education, not because you were an orator, or a man of brilliant intellect; He chose you because through His grace you walked humbly with God, and manifested faithfulness in that which is least” (Ellen White, Manuscript, November 25, 1892, p. 8, to a General Conference leader).
Dear Father, thank you for choosing us with the talents you have given us. Help us to use our talents to be what you intended for us to be. Amen.
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Pastor Tony Sandoval is currently the youth pastor for the Westchester Korean Seventh-day Adventist church. From Guatemalan parents, Tony was born and raised Queens. Tony accepted the call to ministry and by God’s grace graduated with a Master’s in Divinity from Andrews University. After returning from Seminary to New York, he was happily married to his wife Elena.