A couple of years ago I played around with the idea that maybe there are spiritual gifts – those unusual abilities that are so beyond-the-natural they had to come from the Holy Spirit – that aren’t mentioned in the Bible. The possibilities included gifts such as the gift of dogs, cough, receiving, and criticism. You can find the whole list here.
Good news, friends! The SGC (that’s Spiritual Gifts Commissary for you uninitiated) has announced a fresh, lively shipment of new models for 2011. I feel most certain you know at least one person with each of these. And who knows? Your search for understanding of your own supernatural endowments just may end right here.
Here in no certain order (except alphabetical), are ten MORE spiritual gifts you won’t find in the Bible… but maybe-just-maybe, when the Spirit (or something) is moving, you’ll see these manifestations:
Avoidance
The gift of avoidance is the unusual ability to sense when someone is about to ask you for something – a commitment, a decision, a little of your time, etc. – and to steer clear of the asker. Once thought to only exist in the realm of people avoiding a subpoena, people with this gift can be found regularly looking the other way when somebody has a need, acting busy when volunteers are needed in church, or vacating entirely when that dating relationship is getting too serious. This gift is not to be confused with the mere mortal habit of screening calls by using caller ID.
Busyness
Otherwise known as the gift of perpetual motion, people with this gift keep going and going and going, without ever appearing to get tired, sleep, or even slow down. They don’t eat at dinnertime because they’re serving. They don’t sit in church services because they’re up doing something. They don’t rest even when they’re sitting in a group or in front of a TV. You can always spot the person with this gift because something is nearly always moving. Hands. Feet. Mouth. Martha of Bethany, Jesus’ good friend, may have had this gift. You can also spot them by how tired YOU are just watching them or listening to them.
Dromedary
With the emergence of the ubiquitous bigger-than-last-year’s Christmas and Easter pageants, a new range of gifted individuals is needed now more than ever. That’s where the camel whisperer comes in – the one with the gift of dromedary. Imagine you’re the camel and your job is to leave your comfy place in the barn or the desert or wherever and enter a massive room filled with a wall of sound in the form of singing voices. Scary stuff! See for yourself.
People with the gift of dromedary can calm the ugly beast and encourage him to fulfill his kingdom-building ministry. (NOTE: Sometimes people with this gift also have the gift of avoidance, which means if the camel leaves a souvenir on the church carpet, you’ll have to find somebody else to clean it up. Consider yourself warned.)
Complication
This is the unusual ability to take the simplest of ideas and make them complex. Ever hear somebody say, “Ask him what time it is and he’ll tell you how to make a watch?” Or, “He would complicate a two-car funeral?” Yeah, that was this gift in operation. This is an extremely useful gift when the need is to keep individuals or churches from actually changing or growing. The person with the gift of complication can get enough people saying “huh?” to gum up the works for weeks. Big words, long sentences, abstract concepts, complex problems – all are outward expressions of this powerful display of what appears to be useless knowledge.
Confession
You’ve probably read that verse that encourages us to “confess your faults to one another” and “pray for one another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Yeah, just one problem. Left to our own devices, it ain’t gonna happen. So to get the ball rolling, I figure the Spirit must empower people with the unusual ability to curl your hair with what they admit in public. It doesn’t take a Mississippi Squirrel revival – just one or two well-placed confessors should do the trick. Hallelujah!
Disappearance
For the longest time I thought this was evidence of a problem. Dopey me! These people are the gifted lifted! You can usually recognize this gift when somebody blurts, “We just aren’t church hoppers.” I know, sister. It just looks that way because you’ve been in four churches over the last five years. You’re really just exercising that gift of disappearing. I know it looks like your feelings were hurt, or it appears you disapproved of that building program, or that you bailed in the wake of a conflict with the pastor’s wife. But really you’re just exercising your dose of the Ghost.
Procrastination
This is one of the most powerful gifts I have seen in operation. Now let’s be clear – everybody procrastinates at one point or another. And for some people putting things off is a bad habit. But others move in a different stratosphere when it comes to procrastinating. It has to be a supernatural gift, and it’s a thing to behold. You could ask them to breathe, and they’d inhale and hold it for a few seconds, just to let the delay set in. People with the gift of procrastination make outstanding politicians or church committee chairmen. It is not recommended, however, for husbands or employees. And pastors with the gift of procrastination are often recommended for other opportunities of kingdom service.
Suspicion
Not to be confused with discernment, the gift of suspicion is the ability to quickly figure out what’s wrong with virtually anybody you come into contact with. This is very useful in an otherwise high-trust environment, where people have a tendency to take others at face value and claim to accept others as they are. People with the gift of suspicion know there’s more to the story. So they’re constantly on the lookout for hidden motives, secret agendas, and closet activity. But what makes them gifted is their ability to figure out, with no need for evidence, what those motives, agendas, or activities are. I once lived in an area where there was a mighty outpouring of this gift. It was amazing. They often knew your motives before they knew your name. Which was no problem. They just left naming to people with the gift of – you guessed it – names.
Trivia
Some people with this gift specialize in important fields such as theology, hand-me-down clichés, or statistics. Regardless of the specialty, however, people with the gift of trivia can produce, on the spot, information that is neither helpful nor pertinent. And that’s a good thing. This gift is powerful when combined with the gift of prophecy or anything else that makes people uncomfortable. The gift of trivia empowers people to cut the tension produced by conviction, grief, or the gospel. It also gives preachers a way to be interesting without requiring that they be inspiring, encouraging, or informative.
Ungossip
I could tell you a lot about this gift, but I’m not at liberty to say. But if I was at liberty to say, there’s a lot I could say. But I can’t discuss it. Let me just say that there’s more to the story than you know. And I know it. I just can’t discuss it. I’m not at liberty. The gift of ungossip is the ability to destroy someone’s reputation or pass along juicy secrets without ever having to specifically say anything. It’s so powerful and so widely practiced in church world, it must have a supernatural source.
There were some honorable mention gifts that may appear on future lists, but the SGC hasn’t canonized them yet. They include the gift of interruptions, interrogation, obliteration, and improvement, to name a few. Some have suggested that maybe there is a gift of twittering, littering, or flittering. All these and more are being studied.
I still think I’m sticking with the ones in the Bible. But, sometimes…
A woman once came to Dr. Charles Stanley, genuinely believing she had the spiritual gift of “criticism.” She asked, “How can I use this gift to serve? What do I do with it?” Stanley asked, “Do you remember the parable of the talents and the third servant who buried his?” She nodded. Stanley said, “Then, go thou and do likewise!”
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