Imagine walking on a lily pad.  Impossible?  Maybe not if you are in the Amazon rainforest, but in Arkansas I have never seen lily pads that large or strong.

I learned today that there is a bird called the jacana (after clicking the link scroll down the page a bit) that can do it.  They have very long, skinny toes especially fashioned to distribute their weight evenly enough to walk on small or “regular-sized” lily pads.It is amazing how God has equipped these birds.  This guy (or girl?) in the photo above does not seem worried that his lily pad foundation might not be strong enough to support him or that he might take a wrong step, miss the lily pad, and fall into the pond.  He is just moseying along, having caught his breakfast the same way he catches each of his meals every day: confident, accomplished, and peaceful.  He makes walking on a lily pad look easy because he is doing what he was designed to do.  It wouldn’t work well for the jacana bird if he decided one day to try to be a roadrunner or a mockingbird instead of a jacana.

Sometimes I frantically try to change my natural abilities or gifts.  It is essential and a “no brainer” that I always need to do what is right and grow to be more like Jesus.  At the same time, I should not be trying to change the person God called me to be or the unique gift(s) He equipped me with.  For example, it would not work if I tried to become exactly like Beth Moore or Joyce Meyer.  God has given me a desire to encourage people though, and He has given me unique abilities to accomplish that in my life.

The jacana is peacefully contented with the gifts and abilities God has given  him, and he excels at them!  Each of us as Christians can be contented and excel at what God has called us to do too.  Nobody else can accomplish what God has equipped you or me to do in exactly the same way you or I can do it.

“As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good managers of the grace of God in its various forms” (I Peter 4:10).