What does the “normal” Christian life look like?  Let’s face it, not everyone can be a martyr, not everyone can preach like Billy Graham, and not everyone can teach theology for a living.  So how do you know that you’re living the life God wants you to live?

Over the past few decades, there’s been a lot of talk about spiritual gifts.  You can find spiritual gift self-assessments all over the internet – here and here for example – that promise to help you sort out these tough questions of calling and identity.  Maybe you’ve taken one before, and maybe you even learned something new about your skills and passions.

But let’s be honest – spiritual gifts assessments can only tell you as much about yourself as a kissing quiz in Seventeen Magazine.  The real work of introspection, prayer and meaning-making are a lot harder than a multiple-choice test, and it should take you more than 10 minutes to discern how God is calling you to live.

When I was a teenager, I tried on a lot of stock identities.  I tried to be a cool rock band guitarist, I tried to be a preppy guy who wore khakis and sweaters to school every day, and I even tried to be the aloof Bevis and Butthead guy who twisted every statement into something totally inappropriate. 

With each identity I tried on, I discovered something new about myself – things that worked for me, things that made me feel disassociated and alienated from myself, and things that felt as natural to me as breathing. 

As time passed and I tried on more and more stock identities, I eventually learned to pull out the helpful elements and reassemble them into a unique, multidimensional identity that I could call my own.  What was once an adolescent identity crisis resolved itself and became distilled into a compound personality and composite character.  In other words, I grew up. 

Spiritual gifts are much the same way.  There are a lot of specific gifts that people point to – teaching, administration, mercy, prophecy – but don’t forget these are flat, stereotypical, stock spiritual gifts that don’t describe real human beings.  Just as a person cannot entirely be summed up by a stock rock-n-roll identity, a follower of Jesus Christ cannot be summed by the stock spiritual gift of leadership. 

Figuring out who you are in the Body of Christ takes some experimentation, trial and error, and even the occasional failure or two.  You have to spend time in a process of spiritual discernment and learn how to construct your own unique identity in response to God’s call on your life.  Yes, identifying your God-given spiritual gifts will be helpful, but these gifts are more than mere closed, static categories that define who you are.  They are invitations to grow and develop into the beautifully complex and complete person that God wants you to become.

The vitality of your spiritual formation is directly related to the quality of your questions. 

We live in a world where answers are king.  To have an answer demonstrates mastery over something – certainty is a mark of power and a sign of control.  Asking a question, on the other hand, exposes weakness and reveals need.  Questions challenge self-sufficiency and force us to remember the limits of our humanity. 

When we ask a question – when we wrestle with a mystery – we come face to face with something beyond our control, something that threatens to slip out of our firm grasp and stake its claim on our lives. 

Don’t be content with safe answers along your spiritual journey.  Encountering God should unsettle you and leave you with more questions than you started with.  Actually, it might even leave you desperately hungering for more and cause you to give up you life in order to chase after the miraculous mystery of Christ’s life, death and resurrection.

Reading the Bible is hard work that requires a lifetime of sustained, disciplined, prayerful effort. Scripture has to be read over and over and over again, through seasons of plenty and scarcity, through times of pain and pleasure, and through periods of spiritual vitality and in dark spiritual vacuums. 

You can’t merely read a passage and ask, “What does this mean to me?”  Neither can you reduce Scripture down to its various components of literary format, archaeological evidence and authorial intention.  And you can’t proof-text Scripture and pull out an array of unrelated sentences to support your own point of view.

You must live with and in Scripture for extended periods of time and wrestle with its big questions of meaning and mystery.  Let’s face it – you’re a human being.  You will misread Scripture, you will misinterpret its meaning, and you will misuse the words of the Bible for your own gain.  It’s going to happen, and there’s not much you can do to prevent it. 

But you can keep going.  Keep reading – never be content with what you think you know.  Scripture can take care of itself, and God’s self-identity isn’t threatened by your failure to understand. 

The words of Scripture aren’t magical, and understanding Scripture isn’t about solving a riddle, cracking a code or unearthing some hidden meaning that only a privileged few can discern.  But taking the time to examine the text – and allowing the text to examine you – will ultimately bear fruit in your life and in the Kingdom of God.