Two Talents


A few weeks ago I was blessed to have a friend over for the day. Her husband and I grew up together, and she I had gotten to know each other better through doing a book study via Skype. I was looking forward to spending the day with her and her four children.  But I was also nervous.  I look up to her in many ways; she seems to have it all together when it comes to managing her home and being the wife and mother God has called her to be.  I, on the other hand, well, have a long way to go.

Comparing ourselves with others isn’t something we intentionally set out to do.  We know that it usually promotes either pride or self-deprecation.  But still isn’t it human nature to have those thoughts pass through our minds from time to time?

I find these thoughts making an unwelcome entrance sometimes.  In areas where I am strong, they take the form of pride.  For instance, one of my strengths is being a disciplined person. And when someone mentions struggling in this area, it’s easy for me to think, “Well, I’ve got that one covered.”  (But to be honest, if I ever got out of the habit in my regular disciplines, I’m sure I’d be struggling the same way.)

On the opposite end, in areas where I am weak, I find that I berate myself when I see how someone else is doing it better. I’m particularly hard on myself when I watch mothers who don’t work outside the home.  I start going down the road of how I don’t measure up.

I have to think that I’m not the only one who fights these thoughts (or gives in to them).  Perhaps it’s just human nature for us to look at others and compare.

One morning, out of nowhere, a particular Scripture passage came to mind. It’s the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30. If you’re familiar with the passage, you may think of it the same way I did: The moral of the story is that we are to take what we are given and work to increase it, to give back to God instead of just sitting on it.

But I had never really considered the beginning of the passage where Jesus describes that each person got different numbers of “talents.” (in other words, a type of currency)  One servant got five, one got two, and one got one.  I started thinking that possibly another point of the story is the sheer fact that the talents weren’t distributed evenly. If the only point of the parable was to show how two servants were faithful and one was not, couldn’t the same point had been made had all three servants received two talents? 

Therefore, perhaps we need to look a little closer at the fact that God gives “talents” in different measure.

Perhaps we should all view ourselves as having two talents.  We can always find someone who has “less” and we can always find someone who has “more.”  What matters is not how much we have but instead what we are doing with what we are given.

I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions, but this year I’m going to make my focus to be faithful with the “two” talents I’ve been given and stop giving into my mind’s temptation to look to my right and left and compare.  I am responsible for what I’ve been given. (Of course, when we’re faithful with what we’ve been given, we will be given more, with which we are to be faithful.)

And one final thing I noticed.  The master had the same response to the servant with five talents as he did the servant with two. “You have been faithful with little.”  He didn’t say to the one with two, “You’ve been faithful with a little,” and to the one with five, “And you’ve been faithful with a little more.”  It was ALL little in the big scheme of things.  But despite how little it was, both servants were commended as “good and faithful.”

May I be faithful with my two talents.