THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER
William Maillis is no ordinary kid. At age 9 he graduated from high school and is now attending a community college in Pennsylvania, hoping to attend Carnegie Mellon University next year. He hopes to become an astrophysicist someday and prove to everyone that, “God exists.” He wants to show everybody that only an outside force can create the cosmos. So young, so brilliant, and so spiritual!
What makes him so young and so brilliant is God. His father said that at age 6 months his young boy was already able to identify numbers and at age 7 months he could already speak in complete sentences. At age 21 months he was able to do addition and at age 2 years he was able to do multiplication, reading, and writing. At age 4 he was able to do algebra, at age 5 he could do geometry and at age 7, little William could do trigonometry. And, the list goes on.
What makes him so spiritual is his home environment. You see, his father is a Greek-orthodox priest, and he brought up his children in the Lord. He always encourages his genius son to appreciate the gift he has. “God gave you a gift. The worst thing would be to reject that gift and not use it for the betterment of the world,” his father always reminds him of.
We usually associate a gift with an extraordinary talent or special ability. Well, it doesn’t have to be. A gift is simply something that we can do better, not than other people, but rather than other things. So, if we can sing better than we can do math or fix a car, we can, then, say that singing is our gift. But, what matters is not, knowing what our gifts are but rather using our gifts. Simply put, a gift only becomes a gift when it is given to others. I can say that here in our church I do see a lot of gifters! For that, I thank God.
Pastor Paul