When Exercising Your gift

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things
1 Timothy 4:16a

Once upon a time, the animal decide they should do something meaningful to meet the problem of the new world. So they organized a school.
They adopted an activity curriculum of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects
The duck was excellent in swimming; in fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grade in flying, and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to drop swimming and stay after school to practice running. This caused his web feet to be  badly worn, so that he was only average in swimming. But average was quite acceptable, no nobody worried about that except the duck.
The rabbit started at the top of his class in running but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscle because of so much make-up work in swimming. The squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher made him start from ground up instead of from the treetop down. He developed "Charlie horses" from over exertion, and so only got a C in climbing and D in running.
The eagle was a problem child and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist. In climbing classes he beat all the other to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there.
The moral of the story? Each of us has God - given abilities in which we excel, and we shouldn't try filling a mold that doesn't fit. A duck can't run like a rabbit, but neither can rabbit swim like a duck. So should the duck envy rabbit or feel guilty because it waddles during  running class?
Yet how often do we envy other's gift or feel ashamed because we can't witness as effectively as an evangelist or minister as tenderly as a mercy-giver? God has not made us all the same but has designed us with different interests and skills. Why? Because He loves variety and the body needs it see 1Cor.12:4-6,27).
So if you're a duck, don't neglect your strengths concentrate on swimming. Essentially, this is Paul is saying to his young pastor friend Timothy. Be faithful be Diligent! Now that you're on the path to discovering and using your gift take note of a couple of pitfall along the way that could trip you up and hinder your ministry. First: Guard against the "I am indispensable" attitude. As valuable as we are to the body of Christ's, as significant as our gift is in God's plan for His church, we are never indispensable. Christ's work doesn't rise and fall with our presence and our gifts. On the contrary, He can accomplish His will through someone else as well as through us. So express your gift with humble heart, understanding its limitation in addition to its values.