Not everyone is effervescent

A certain talk show host is on an even keel day in day out. I’m amazed. If the man has troubles, you wouldn’t know it. Surely the griefs that flesh is heir to are his too, but he is steady as an arrow and bubbly as champagne. He has one speed and it’s psyched.

Such men are the freaks of nature, methinks—like cycling’s Greg LeMond and Miguel Indurain, men with 8-liter lung capacities and a VO2 max of 90, double that of the average person. They can thank their genes and their God.

We all know people who are sanguine by constitution, who when handed a pile of horse dung happily dig in to find the pony underneath. But being born with an upbeat personality may be no more to one’s credit than being born with blue eyes or oversized pulmonary organs. After all:

“What do you have that you did not receive”? (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

Some Christians are naturally bubbly. Others are naturally of subdued temperament. The bubbly one is not necessarily more spiritual than the quiet and subdued one. We have no idea what another man is going through, what temperament God gave him, what childhood experiences shaped him, what demons he wrestles—and wrestles well!—to “fight the good fight.”

The parable of the talents distributed to three servants is a reminder to me of the very private relationship each of us has with God. No two relationships are alike, no two entrustings identical. Therefore the Master will judge each of His beloved separately, with attention to His divinely apportioned endowments, and weighing of mitigating circumstances.

We are cautioned against hasty and superficial assessments of one another:

“Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4, ESV).

Do not envy the Christian who is charismatic and dynamic, for you do not know what is spiritual and what is natural. Only God knows. This is why the Apostle Paul speaks rightly when he wrote, “… when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves to one another, they are without understanding.”

Keep our eye on Christ alone, for in the end there is only you and He:

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body …” (2 Corinthians 5:10, ESV).