The Kingdom Kees to Genius: Unlocking the Mind of Christ Within You
This article is an excerpt from Minister Reggie Kee’s most recently released book: Common Genius, Uncommon Destiny: Unlocking the Genius within You. Genius, as redefined in this book, is readily accessible to anyone as a non-academic attribute based on a combination of one’s PASSION, TALENT and PURPOSE. Our purpose (or destiny) in life is to identify our God-given talent and apply it to our passion which is directly tied to what each of us was meant to fix in a world full of brokenness.
“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.” – Leo Buscaglia
What’s the best thing to get when something is broken? Whether it’s something as simple as a chair or as complex as a car, the answer is somebody else. No… wait… that’s not right! Some of us may actually get a carpenter or a mechanic to fix a chair or car and that’s okay – this is a judgment-free zone! But even carpenters and mechanics need tools to fix what’s broken. They can’t merely walk into a room and magically correct your faulty possessions. I don’t care how much training or experience they have, you would be hard-pressed to find a carpenter or mechanic who can fix what you bring to them without at least ONE tool.
Likewise, your talent (or gift) is your tool. Though I’ve come across many people who claim to have no talent, I contend that anyone who says this is in self-denial. Either that, or they just haven’t fully explored the possibilities beyond the hang-ups of fear and failure. These F-bombs quench the very nature of passion – leaving those who revel in them cursed from ever coming close to living out what they were meant to do in and with their lives.
I’d like to reinforce the concept of God-given talent with a parable from the Bible. God’s Word is amazing in that it is often rife with double entendre, or rather, words and phrases with two meanings. In fact, it is self-ascribed as being sharper than a two-edged sword (see Hebrews 4:12). One of the greatest examples of this supernatural blacksmithing is the parable of the talents found in Matthew 25:14-28.
Though the word “talent” used here refers to a measure of weight (similar to how we describe diamonds in carats), the parallel here is striking. In the story, a king gives three of his servants different portions of talents “according to their abilities.” The king goes on a journey, but upon his return, he checks in to see what his servants have managed to do with the portions they were given. The servants with five and two talents double them to ten and four, respectively. The king affectionately calls them “good and faithful servants” and instructs them to enter into his rest. The last one, though… Fs it up, royally. Rather, he allows fear and failure to prevent him from even trying to do anything constructive as he opts to simply bury the talent in the ground. When he presents this dusty talent to the king without a single return on his investment, the king affectionately (or rather, passionately) calls him “wicked and slothful” and throws him out into the darkness where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
To make it plain, the unprofitable servant didn’t know the talent of his genius (several abilities). Putting his talent in the earth gave the king no return on his investment, which is a no-no with a “capital” N (don’t miss the wordplay there!) for any investor. God is very much a King and very much an Investor in us.
He has given us a portion of His talents/gifts to terraform the earth back into the reflection of heaven it was meant to be. That may sound odd to hear but it may seem more familiar in its normal form – as heard in the one-liner of what is often called the model prayer: “on earth as it is in heaven.” We delay this process when we take His talent and only present it back to Him with an earthly return. As the true owner of said talent, He reserves the right to have a pretty passionate response when we waste it; even though the world, as currently run (into the ground) by the devil, rewards us handsomely for doing so.
So with all that said… what is YOUR talent?
Reggie and Quiana Kee have known each other for over 20 years and were married in 2004. They were licensed to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ in 2015 at the Kingdom Advancement Center in Elgin, Ill., where they currently reside. They have two children and are the co-founders of Ink Well Spoken and Manu Forti Ministries, which serve as the marketplace and faith-based programs for their motivational speaking initiatives.