On the Shelf?

I love my new food storage containers that I finally got around to using.  I got them at Ikea when we were visiting family in Houston this summer, and I just ran onto them recently.   Like everything I get there, they are a little different, adding a touch of fun or novelty to the most ordinary product.  In a set of 17 containers, 11 of them are small, some as small as half a cup or less.  Nobody else would probably like that, but I save the smallest tidbits (ask my kids!).

This morning we had a few fried apples left over from breakfast that I had salvaged from three withering pommes left in the fruit bowl.  They were so delicious I couldn't bear to throw them away, and they just fit into a tiny container.  Now if I just don't forget to use them!  I have some very neat stacks of leftovers in the fridge that look so much better in the see-through pac than they would in a plastic-wrap covered bowl!  The peas look pretty, the mashed potatoes neat, and the salad crispy, like little presents.

Despite my thriftiness, none of that leftover food will do us any good if I don't remember to serve it.  (Sometimes around here it's not necessary to serve it--I have a refrigerator raider in the house.) Just knowing I have it (or forgetting I have it) does not benefit our menu or our grocery budget.

Sometimes I think that's the way we are with our spiritual gifts.  What good is the gift of teaching if we don't teach?  Or the gift of healing if we don't pray for people? Or any of the other gifts listed in I Corinthians 12.  Verse 7 says these manifestations of the Spirit are for the profit of all: Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, tongues and the interpretation of tongues.  Another list of gifts is given in Romans 12:3-8:  Prophecy, Ministry, Teaching, Exhortation, Giving, Leadership, and Mercy.

We can admire the pretty wrappings or packaging of a gift, and just like it for itself.  But how much better to open the box, use and enjoy it and/or use it for the benefit of others?  Even the gift of salvation is like that.  Although it is a gift, we must accept it and appropriate it, including all its benefits.  Why let our gifts grow stale and as unappetizing as forgotten leftovers?  They are not for cold storage!