Philosophy of Spiritual Gifts :: Christian Spiritual Gifts

The area of Spiritual gifts is one which holds great interest for me. The thought that the different areas of effectiveness and skills are from God is interesting. I grew up with the teaching that we had God given abilities but never equated these with "spiritual gifts". They were just skill that we had been born with. I felt that our genetics and social conditioning had as much to do with these "gifts" as the Holy spirit did. Since there are non-Christians who exhibit these same abilities and gifts and when I was not a Christian I still had the desire to encourage others (encouragement is my spiritual gift). So I guess that I just never thought of these as spiritual gifts. I have been wondering for a few years now about what my spiritual gifts are. Although I have been intrigued by them, I was unsure of the method to use to discover them. The truth is, the thought that I did not know never really concerned me. The lack of understanding my spiritual gifts did not keep me from ministering. In a way I guess that they were already evident to me. The only thing I was missing was the "Christian" terminology for them. I would still be content not to know what the spiritual gifts I have are, but the elective I took gave me the opportunity to explore and discover the spiritual gifts I possess. My involvement in the discovering of my spiritual gifts is purely by God's design, so I assume that the time is right for me to be aware of them. The class module has been informative and interesting, and has revealed to me the gifts that God has blessed me with. The biggest concern I have regarding knowledge of our spiritual gifts is the temptation to misuse them and to a smaller degree to let ourselves be constricted in what we do in our spiritual lives because the task may lie outside of our "gifts". The thought that people use this as an excuse is disappointing to me. That tells me that they do not have a full understanding of who our God is. To limit oneself to the spiritual gifts that are evident is in a sense limiting God. When We become Christians is purely because of what God has worked in us. Throughout the life of the believer the continuing work of the Spirit is evident in our lives, or should be if the believer's relationship with God is healthy.