My wife and I have just got back from Amsterdam and we had a great time in The Van Gough museum, seeing a progression of over 200 paintings. Vincent was given a small talent for drawing, which he developed. When we looked at his very dark, muddy coloured early work we were very surprised how lacking in quality and brilliance they were. We expected awe-inspiring paintings from the beginning. When you go around the many rooms in the museum you begin to appreciate the amount of struggling and striving that Vincent went through. He could have given up and lived a good life sponging off his moderately rich brother, but he went to the hub of innovative new art and studied books and became friends with other artists and began very slowly to develop his own style until in his last three years or so he was producing the rich, vibrant, swirling kaleidoscope of colour that we associate with Van Gough.

 

Jesus told his disciples a parable about talents in Matthew 25 verses 14 to 30. Here we find servants who were given various amounts of money to look after by their employer. Most use the money wisely and earn a good profit for their master but one servant went and hid his talent in the earth and when his employer returned he gave him back the one talent that he was looking after. The employer was very angry and took the talent from him and gave it to the most industrious servant as a reward for working hard.

 

What talents have you got? Are you using them wisely and developing them to your best ability or are you hiding them away and letting them rust and perish like the unwise servant? If you would like help discovering your hidden talents why not pop into one of the many churches in Dewsbury and find out how you could invest your talents wisely.

 

By Adam Momčilović, deacon of Dewsbury Baptist Church

On behalf of Churches Together in Dewsbury