Bill Mounce is a NT Greek professor and has written an excellent introductory Greek grammar. I was kind of surprised to read his blog entry today where he discusses his first shot at public speaking:

And when I got down I said to myself, “If there is one thing I now know, it is that God has not gifted or called me to speak in public!”

Well, years later we know that wasn’t the case. John Piper has a similar story about how he started speaking. I like the way Mounce ends his post:

Gifts and calling have to be nurtured, developed, practiced. So be patient. Don’t think you necessarily made a vocational mistake just because you are struggling with term papers taking finals, or delivering what in your mind was the worse sermon ever preached. These are the fires we get to walk through in order to learn and to grow.

There is a place for spiritual gifts assessments and tools like that but don’t think that the gifts and talents God gives you are always going to be immediately obvious to you nor are they necessarily things you’re good at and comfortable with. They’re not necessarily set when you are born or born again either. They may come and go as God uses you in different situations.

But Bill’s point above is that what God is calling you to may involve a struggle to get there. It isn’t always the easiest path or the one with least resistance. But whatever it is, if God is calling you there, he’ll provide the grace to make it through as well.