He Thinks the Talent Was the Whole of What He Was Worth

At seventeen there were three men who wanted to talk to him and one of them flew in.

It did not happen. Some of it was circumstance and some of it was him, and he has stopped doing the accounting on which was which, because the accounting never comes out the same twice and it never makes him feel better.

He is thirty one. He still has it. He can still do the thing, and on a good night he can do it better than he could then, which is a joke nobody in his life would find funny.

Here is the part he has never said out loud. He does not know who he is without it.

Not in a dramatic way. In a practical way. When somebody at a job asks him about himself, there is a two second gap where he decides whether to bring it up, and if he does not, he cannot think what else to say. It was not one of the things about him. For about fifteen years it was the thing, and now it is a thing that did not happen, and he cannot work out what that leaves.

God puts the knowing before the forming

There is a sentence God says to a young man who is about to argue with Him, and the order of the clauses is the point.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5, King James Version)

Before I formed thee I knew thee.

Read that carefully. The knowing comes before the forming. Before there was a body, before there was a capacity, before there was anything that could be assessed by anybody.

Which means the relationship does not run through the equipment. God did not meet him at the point where he became useful.

You were known before there was anything about you to be good at. Jeremiah 1 puts the knowing ahead of the forming in the same sentence, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an order of clauses do something to fifteen years of arithmetic.

The gifts do not get repossessed

There is a short sentence in Romans that says something about how God handles this.

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)

Without repentance is old English for without a change of mind. He does not take them back.

Which cuts both ways, and the second way is the one that helps here.

If the gift is still there, and it plainly is, then it did not fail an assessment. It was not withdrawn because the man did not do enough with it by twenty five. God is not described anywhere as running that kind of review.

So a gift that did not turn into a career is not a gift that got revoked. It is a gift, still in the room, doing whatever a gift does when nobody is paying for it.

You are still carrying something that was never taken back. Romans 11 says the gifts and calling of God come without a change of mind, and it is His Spirit who makes an old legal phrase land on a keyboard in a living room.

Eleven years between the oil and the throne

There is a scene where a teenager gets anointed king in front of his family, and then the story does something that nobody expects.

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. (1 Samuel 16:13)

That is the moment. The oil, the family watching, the Spirit.

And then he goes back to the sheep. The very next thing he is doing is running errands for his father and carrying food to his brothers at a battle.

Most people put the gap at somewhere between ten and fifteen years. Somewhere in there he is a fugitive living in caves.

The anointing was real the whole time. The waiting was also real the whole time. Neither one canceled the other, and nobody in that story treats the gap as evidence that the oil was a mistake.

You are not holding a mistake because there has been a gap. 1 Samuel 16 has the Spirit coming on him and the sheep waiting in the next paragraph, and it is that same Spirit who makes a long wait stop reading as a verdict.

The notes existed before the performance

There is a line in Psalm 139 about a book that was written before there was anything to look at.

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalm 139:16)

When as yet there was none of them.

Whatever is in that book, it was not a summary of achievements, because there were none. It was not a projection based on early promise, because there was nothing to project from.

Somebody was interested in the material before the material could do anything.

You are written about in a book that predates every one of your results. Psalm 139 says the writing came before the fashioning, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old image about a book feel like it addresses a man who cannot describe himself without a résumé.

And the valuation is set somewhere else entirely

Jesus says something about worth that uses a deliberately silly comparison, and the silliness is the argument.

But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:7)

Sparrows were the cheapest thing in the market. Two for a penny, and the verse before says five for two pennies, which means the fifth one was thrown in free.

And He says God does not forget the free one.

Then He does the arithmetic out loud. If that is how He handles the throwaway item, what is the valuation on the person listening.

It is not based on output. It is not based on what happened at seventeen. It is set by the one doing the counting.

You are valued by somebody who counts the item that gets thrown in free. Luke 12 builds the whole argument from the cheapest thing in the market, and it is His Spirit who makes an old market comparison land on a man of thirty one.