TIP 20. IDENTIFYING TALENTS
I firmly believe that when we are placed in this world, we arrive with both a mission in life and gifting or abilities to achieve that mission. For many these gifts or abilities are natural areas that we may excel in, or areas that we show great potential in, beyond the norm. As a parent we should be prepared to identify and encourage our child in areas that they show interest and talent in.
I also believe that finding your area of gifting often plays a large part in ultimately finding fulfilment in life. In light of this, it is important that we as fathers be on the lookout for areas of gifting in our child's life. If we can identify these abilities early in life, we can begin to encourage the child and open up opportunities for them to grow in their area of gifting.
Identifying your child's area of gifting can be as easy as realising that your son likes to pull things apart and try to put them back together again, or finding them constantly expressing interest in all the bugs they find in the yard.
It could be a desire to help do the cooking in the kitchen from an early age, or being a stand out player in an area of sport. It could be your daughter showing an interest in making clothes for dollies, or constantly spending time doing her friend's hair. All these situations can be clues along the way to finding their area of gifting.
I think that as a father one of my greatest desires is to see my children live a happy and fulfilled life. It is a sad reality but true, that many people go through life hating their job, but never realise that there may be a viable alternative. I think that if we as fathers can help our children to find their own area of gifting, or even to encourage to them to keep looking for it until they do, we will be helping them move a long way toward finding fulfilment in life.
Now it is also important to realise that many people do not even identify their area of gifting until later in life, so we should not put any pressure on our children to find it. These things seem to work themselves out in the right season of life for each person, but if we can encourage our children that they have a gift, they will stay focused until they find it.
Dads' Call To Action:
Keep a look out for signs of a talented area within your children, and encourage them and open up opportunities for them to pursue it.
(Proverbs 18 v 16)
A man's gift makes room for him,
And brings him before great men.