As some of you know, in my “other life” my husband and I run a business that teaches medical courses, including wilderness medicine courses, as well as basic first aid and CPR. As part of that business, we monitor American Heart Association instructors while teaching CPR classes for quality assurance of courses, and have evaluated literally hundreds of CPR instructors over the years.

A few years ago, my husband went to monitor an instructor, and when he returned, I asked him how it had gone. He indicated that the instructor had done a decent job teaching, used the video appropriately, and knew her CPR information and science (which unfortunately is not always the case with CPR instructors). On a theoretical scale of 1 to 50, he ranked her about a 42. Seeing what we have over the years, that was actually a pretty good score. After a dramatic pause, he then indicated that although she was a decent/good instructor, that even if she worked really hard, she probably would only ever improve to a 46 or 47, but would never reach a 50 in CPR instruction. Basically, although she was a good instructor, and had the potential to become a great instructor, she would never be an excellent instructor. It was meant as nothing negative toward her at all, and perhaps her nursing skills were at a 50 (or was a 50 in something else in her life), but teaching CPR was just not her natural calling of excellence.

From this moment sprang the idea of finding our natural gift that we are all born with — that God-given talent that we were designed to do and that we will excel in — our “Fifty”.

I happen to be of the belief that we are all born with a specific purpose in mind. There is a gift (or maybe more than one gift) that we were given at birth, for which it is our purpose in life to share with others. For some it might be teaching, for others it might be providing medical care, or maybe it is building bridges, creating art, computer programming, cooking, singing…the list could go on forever. But it is “the thing” we were literally born to do.

To not discover your gift, or to not use your gift, might even be considered as a waste. It would mean that your life’s purpose would not be lived out. Therefore, wouldn’t be important to continue searching for what your “Fifty” is, and then spending the rest of your life trying to use your Fifty to better the world?

As for my husband, I am pretty convinced that his “Fifty” is (in fact) teaching. He is able to gain tremendous rapport with his students, can explain even the most complicated processes in terms that everyone can understand, and can move students with his passion for the material. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of his teaching. As for me, I think I am still trying to Find My Fifty, but I have a few ideas. Can I challenge you to find your fifty? What is it that you were born to do, and how will you use it to better this world that we live in?

“God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.” – 1 Peter 4:10-11 (NLT)