Karen Papin: [00:00:00]
Welcome to the Divine Worth Podcast, where we are letting go of our self-doubt, anxiety, fear, limiting beliefs, so that we can step into the divine roles that God has for us. I am your host life coach, Karen Papin, and together we are embracing our divine worth and potential.
Welcome to the Divine Worth Podcast. Our guest today is Becky Squire. Becky loves helping others learn how to share the gospel online in easy and effective ways. She believes that God created social media as a way to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. Becky has been sharing latter day Saint tips and content on her blog for over seven years, and has also published in the Lehon LDS Living and the Today Show.
Becky enjoys jump roping, playing piano and teaching seminary, her sweet family, Liz in Northern Utah. So Becky, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Yes, thank
Becky Squire: you for having me. I’m excited.
Karen Papin: I’m excited too, and I wanted you to [00:01:00] come on here and talk a bit about spiritual gifts. So to kind of get started I am wondering how would you define spiritual gifts?
Becky Squire: Well, the definition is in the scriptures, but spiritual gifts are gifts from God that we have for the purpose of blessing others and building God’s kingdom.
Karen Papin: So you post like a lot about spiritual gifts. And so I’m curious, like how did you start recognizing that that was something that you needed to share about?
Becky Squire: I mean, it was kind of gradual, but I think I just posted about it. I post about different gospel topics and things here and there, and I, I just happened to post about spiritual gifts and just received a lot of feedback, both like, we love this, or a lot of women saying. I don’t know what my spiritual gifts [00:02:00] are.
And even a lot that said, I don’t think I have any. And that just made me really sad when I heard that and I, I think it’s really common. And so I just kind of felt the call to like learn more about it myself, but then also help other women specifically learn that they do have spiritual gifts, figure out what they are and how to use them.
And as I’ve done that over the last several years. I’ve noticed that it really creates a lot of confidence that women are missing in their lives. It helps them to understand their purpose in life and helps them to really like, strengthen their relationship with God.
Karen Papin: So like, I like how those three things that you’ve said, where it helps ’em build confidence, it helps ’em find purpose and strengthen their relationship with God.
I have found that those three things are so interconnected. Is that something that you’ve found as well?
Becky Squire: Oh [00:03:00] yeah, absolutely. I think that when we discover what our purpose is in life, that will naturally. Give us confidence because we know why we’re here, we know what we’re supposed to do. And that just kind of builds confidence.
And then as we do that, always keeping an eye singled to the glory of God, which is the purpose of spiritual gifts, then that also naturally helps us create and strengthen our relationship with him.
Karen Papin: Why do you feel that people struggle to see the spiritual gifts that they have?
Becky Squire: So I just think it’s kind of the culture of members of the church that we try not to focus on ourselves, right? We’re taught to serve other people. And and so I think it just kind of gets lost in that teaching or learned behavior that we focus on others and we shouldn’t focus on ourselves because we wanna avoid pride.
But it’s actually the opposite of that. We need [00:04:00] to understand who we are and what we can do so that we can serve God. That’s the whole purpose of it.
Karen Papin: Great. What would you say to. Like you said, some people have reached out to you and they’re like, I don’t know if I even have any spiritual gifts.
What, what do you say to them?
Becky Squire: I say it a lot kinder than this, but I just kind of bring up like, so do you think God forgot to give you spiritual gifts, like you’re putting limits on God? Because in the scriptures he promises. That we will have spiritual gifts. So do you not believe him? And like I said, I say it in a lot kinder way than that, but um, but it’s true, like God doesn’t lie.
And so if we read the scriptures, we know that he gives us spiritual gifts. The tricky thing is recognizing them in ourselves. And that’s kind of where I try to help. Start [00:05:00] the process of, okay, we do have spiritual gifts. What are they and how can we use them?
Karen Papin: So what would be like the next step there?
How do you start to see them?
Becky Squire: So there’s a, I have a bunch of tips how to discover your spiritual gifts, but I would say the first thing is always to pray and ask God. He is not trying to hide. them from us. He’s not trying to keep them a secret from us. He wants us to know what they are so that we can use them, but he’s also, I believe, not going to just tell us what they are without us having that desire to know and to do the work so that we nurture them.
You know, it’s kind of like the parable of the talents. And so we need to have that desire and have that ability to, to use them and to grow them and to strengthen them. [00:06:00] And when we ask with that desire, God’s gonna tell us. So ask God, ask God what your spiritual gifts are. Another thing we can do is to read the scriptures.
There’s a whole list of spiritual gifts in doctrine covenants in Moroni in the New Testament. I have a whole list of, I think it’s like 72 kind of uncommon spiritual gifts or spiritual gifts that we might not think of on my website. And so there’s just a whole bunch of things that, you know, think about what people say that you’re good at.
What do people compliment you on what does your patriarchal blessing say? Patriarchal blessings will almost always have several spiritual gifts in them. So that’s kind of where I would start.
Karen Papin: Yeah. So I, I like what you’re saying in that it’s, it, it reminds me of the brother of Jared where it’s like when it comes to [00:07:00] lighting the boat.
It was the Lord’s like, okay, you come up with a way, right?
Becky Squire: Mm-hmm.
Karen Papin: Like, it’s not, we’re not always gonna receive that answer. And so we, we put forth the effort and start to intentionally look for those things that, that the Lord has given us.
So we’ve asked heavenly father, we’re starting to intentionally look for those little ways or, or maybe not little, maybe they’re bigger than we realize those spiritual gifts that we have.
What are some spiritual gifts that we might overlook?
Becky Squire: Well, one of my favorites is, and I think this is a really common one with women but one of my favorites is the gift of listening. And I think that, you know, just sitting and listening to a friend or even to your child might not seem like a gift to you, but to that other person, how important is that, that they feel [00:08:00] heard and that they just have someone that listens to them?
So I love that gift. The gift of teaching. The gift of charity. The gift of humor, that’s a spiritual gift. Those are just to name a few. Like I said, I have a whole list on my blog, on my website. But just think of the things that like you are good at or that people tell you, qualities that people tell you you have, you can use each one of those as a spiritual gift.
Karen Papin: I am wondering, like, what would you say, say that we are starting to recognize and see some of those spiritual gifts, and then like that self-doubt starts to come in and we start to question, oh, well, so and so has this spiritual gift, though it’s so much better than what I have.
What is something that you, how would you help someone through that?
Becky Squire: It’s important to remember that spiritual gifts are not about us, they’re [00:09:00] about others. And so when we start comparing our spiritual gifts. With others or wishing that we had spiritual gifts that we don’t have. Well first let me say, we can, we can desire spiritual gifts that we don’t have, but when we do it in a comparative way or a doubtful way we are making those spiritual gifts about us, and they’re not about us.
They’re about God, and they’re about serving other people. And so when we remember that and have that frame of mind that it’s not about us, then it doesn’t matter at all because we are just using what God gave us to serve others and to build his kingdom.
Karen Papin: Love that. So it’s not about us. And I also like how you did point out that we can seek those spiritual gifts as well.
If it’s one that we don’t necessarily see within ourselves, we can grow and work on and, and develop it. And, and so I love that you also pointed that out. Would you mind sharing like a personal [00:10:00] example where you recognized a spiritual gift within yourself and then used it to make a difference?
Becky Squire: Yeah, so I actually had a little help for my husband discovering the spiritual gift, but I’ll tell you this story because it’s kind of funny, but a few years ago, there was a new lady in our ward, she didn’t really know a lot of people and one day I was driving, it was in the summer, and I was driving to girls camp just to visit for the day.
And this new mom she had a daughter that was there at camp and she just kind of felt nervous, I think. And so she wanted to go just for a few hours and stop in and make sure everything was okay. And so I invited her to drive with me and so we drove, you know, it was like an hour drive to girls camp and we didn’t really know each other very well ’cause she was new.
And so I was really excited to get to know each other [00:11:00] during this hour long drive. And what happened is she ended up talking the entire time and it was fine. I didn’t say anything. I just listened and got to know her. But I remember thinking, well, gosh, like she didn’t give me any opportunity to. Say anything.
And so I was kind of lamenting to my husband about this later and I was like, you know, she just talked about herself the whole entire time. And he said, that’s because you have the gift of listening and people just feel so comfortable telling you everything. And when he kind of put it that way, I just stopped and I was like, you know what?
I actually do have that gift. I love to listen to people and. Unfortunately, sometimes I’m like, well, what about me? I wanna talk too. And that’s okay too. But but I think when we recognize it as a spiritual gift, you know, I look back and I say maybe she really needed to get all of that off of her chest.
She told me a lot of [00:12:00] stuff about her life and I think she just needed to get off her chest. And I hope that that made her feel better. And so I’ve noticed that in my life, really when I talk to a lot of people, is I. I tend to be the quiet one and listen to others, and I really, you wouldn’t know it from this podcast, but I really don’t tend to talk a lot.
Karen Papin: Okay. So, so that’s in, that is interesting that you say that because I, I know you from Instagram and you get on there a lot and you are sharing about the gospel and so like how, how did you. Go from someone who doesn’t talk a lot to now getting online and, and sharing about your testimony.
Becky Squire: It’s funny.
People who don’t know me in real life would be shocked, but I’m an introvert a hundred percent. And I’m quiet in social gatherings. I sit back, I observe, I just don’t talk. I wouldn’t say I’m shy, but I just prefer [00:13:00] to. Let other people talk and just to be watching other people. But online it’s a different story because long story short, I just really feel called to share the gospel online.
And so of course at first it was really scary and it still is sometimes, but I do it every single day. I get on there and I show my face every day, and I’ve been doing it, like you said, for over seven years. And so it’s just kind of. I’ve gotten used to it, and it’s kind of like I have this, you know, I’m not fake online, but I present myself very differently than I do in real life because that’s what I’m doing.
I’m sharing, I’m sharing the gospel, and I think that the reason I do it, it’s because it’s not easy for me to do in real life. Like if someone were to approach me and ask me about the gospel. Who weren’t members, members, I would be really [00:14:00] scared to talk to them about it. This has happened several times and my husband’s the total opposite, right?
He loves to talk to people in real life about the gospel, but he would never get online and do that. He is like, no thanks. That’s not for me. But I just feel more comfortable, I guess. I feel more comfortable talking to a camera than to people.
Karen Papin: I totally understand that. My husband’s a lot better missionary than I am.
Becky Squire: Yeah, I’m just a different kind of missionary, I think.
Karen Papin: Yes. Yeah. And that, and that is a good point. And, and I think that’s also where like those spiritual gifts come in is we have different spiritual gifts and we have different strengths. And so we need each one. And so if we are struggling to be like, oh, my spiritual gift isn’t as good as so and so’s, then it’s.
Remind yourself that each one of those gifts is important and your particular spiritual gift is important. So the way that you are sharing the gospel is something that’s super [00:15:00] needed. And the way that your husband does it is also something that is super needed as well.
Becky Squire: Yep.
Karen Papin: Well, it’s, it’s fun kind of getting to know you, like this as well.
The squire that’s online, the online. And that’s that. That’s also an interesting thing about people is that we have, it’s not that we’re two different people, it’s just that we’re showing different sides of ourselves. Like people are so complex and, and it’s so beautiful how like in one situation we we’re still staying true to who we are, but it show it comes off differently than if we were in a different situation.
Becky Squire: Yep, absolutely.
Karen Papin: Okay.
How can understanding our own gifts help us better appreciate and support others in their gifts?
Becky Squire: Well, I think that, again, when we understand what our gifts are that gives us confidence. [00:16:00] And when we have that confidence, we want to see others succeed as well. Right? A confident person doesn’t bring down other people.
They build and they lift. So when we feel confident, that’s what we wanna do, is we wanna help other people discover their spiritual gifts and see them use that because it all comes together in the end for the same purpose and it’s all for God. And so I think when we remember that, then it just comes naturally that we want to help other people.
Karen Papin: What do you think are some of the tools that Satan uses to keep us from recognizing that?
Becky Squire: Well, definitely comparison, like we talked about earlier. Comparison is a big one. And then just doubting ourselves. I also think that mental health is, is something that Satan uses to, because mental health can block our ability to recognize spiritual gifts and [00:17:00] to even to feel the spirit.
And so so if we can learn tools on how to overcome or even just deal with mental health then that can help a lot as well.
Karen Papin: And that, and that is a really good point and something that a lot of people do struggle with. And so like, getting those tools, getting the support that you need, when you’re in, in the midst of a mental health struggle are things that are really important in helping you to be able to be in a place where you can better appreciate your own gifts and others as well.
So you have a spiritual gift guide, and I am wondering, would you be willing to kind of walk us through like the, the process that you kind of go through within that guide?
Becky Squire: Yeah, so the reason I created this guide is because I get asked a lot to like, come and speak about spiritual gifts. So I speak to like [00:18:00] relief society groups and young women groups and girls camps and things like that.
And and it’s very like practical. Like it’s not just a feel good inspirational talk, like it’s, I give you tips and tricks and tools on like how to actually discover your spiritual gifts and what to do with them. And so I knew that a lot of women and men wanted to learn this and I can’t go speak to everybody.
And so, so I made actually like two things. I made, I recorded myself basically giving the presentation, so I have like a presentation, but then I also have just like a little PDF that kind of goes through it. Yeah, it goes through how to, well, it goes through what spiritual gifts are. We have to fundamentally understand that first, and then it goes through how to recognize the ones that you already have.
So recognizing ’em, and then it goes through how to figure out. [00:19:00] The, the ones that you’ve been promised, maybe, but maybe you don’t see those inside of yourself. It also goes through how to develop spiritual gifts that you desire. It talks about kind of like how to, how do I say this? The, the way that we develop them, because if we don’t have the right intent.
Then God isn’t gonna bless us. Like we have to have the right, the right intent. So it goes into all of that. It gives you that list of 72 spiritual gifts that I mentioned before. It list those out, and then it talks about how to how to bless the world, how to change the world with your spiritual gifts.
And it, and it teaches you how to find that purpose with your spiritual gifts, how to find your purpose in life. So yeah, it’s just really practical.
Karen Papin: And where can people go to find that?
Becky Squire: If you just go to my website, [00:20:00] becky squire.com and just on the homepage there’s like a section about spiritual gifts and if you click on that, all of my spiritual gift resources are on that page.
Karen Papin: Okay. Awesome. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us about social gifts?
Becky Squire: No, I don’t think so. We kind of covered it just. I would say that I hope everyone listening knows and believes that they have spiritual gifts, even if they don’t know what they are, that’s okay. Because we can figure that out.
But but just believing that we do have spiritual gifts is the first step.
Karen Papin: Right. And I just thought of another question.
What if we have a spiritual gift and we recognize it and then I guess I kind of talked a little bit about self-doubt coming in before.
But what if we feel like using our spiritual gift is actually gonna have a negative consequence?
Becky Squire: That’s a good question. Can you give me like an [00:21:00] example of a spiritual gift that would have a negative consequence?
Karen Papin: Well, maybe that’s what we need to ask to answer that question, right? , Well, it’s like, okay, so in, in the example of like when you’re, maybe it’s not a specific spiritual gift.
But when you are around someone who is grieving, a lot of times people are like, I don’t know what to say, or How can I use my s spiritual gifts in this circumstance?
Becky Squire: So more like worrying that you might hurt more than help.
Karen Papin: Yes.
Becky Squire: Is that kind of where you’re going?
Karen Papin: Yeah,
Becky Squire: well just, you gotta follow the spirit.
Right. And I think that if your intentions are good, you, you might offend somebody, right? But if your intentions are good, then you can’t [00:22:00] fault yourself for that. But if someone is going through a hard time or grieving, like you could ask them, say, Hey, I thought about doing this or helping you this way, would that be okay?
So yeah, without like a specific example, I don’t know. That’s just, those are just kind of my thoughts, but I think if you have a good intentions, then it’s okay.
Karen Papin: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think that’s a great response. Yeah. So the good intentions and then also like asking, Hey, is this okay? And, and, mm-hmm. I both, both of those answers are are awesome.
So, okay, so my next question now is, do you have like a, a personal experience where you helped someone to recognize their spiritual gift, and if so, how did that change their lives?
Becky Squire: Well. [00:23:00] I have had several people tell me, like after I’ve spoken I just spoke at a girls camp a couple weeks ago and just at the very end of that, one of the girls came up to me and said, I didn’t know if I had any spiritual gifts.
I didn’t even really think about spiritual gifts until you talked about it. But, you know, during that, that presentation, I helped them. Kind of understand what some of their spiritual gifts were. And so she was like, you helped me discover my spiritual gift, but that was kind of the end of that, right? I don’t follow up and follow their lives.
And so I don’t know how she’s using it, but but I love it when people tell me, oh, I never thought of that. Thank you. Thanks for helping me think of that. So I think if I can just help someone recognize that, have a light bulb turn on right then, that just makes me so happy. And hopefully they continue on and use those spiritual gifts and help others to do the same.[00:24:00]
Karen Papin: What is your favorite divine worth scripture?
Becky Squire: Oh, I shared this. I forgot the reference though. But the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. Do you have that reference?
Karen Papin: Yeah. Doctrines, covenants 18, 10.
Becky Squire: Yes, that’s right. Yeah. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God. I’ll never forget a talk that I heard from my state president several years ago, and he was talking about he was talking about that subject and he shared, and I’ve shared this on my, on my Instagram too, but he shared that the worth of something like the value of something.
Whether it’s like a house or a car is worth the money that someone is willing to spend on it, right? And so like if I put my house for sale for $500,000, but some, but nobody’s, well, I guess I should say this, [00:25:00] but someone comes in and says, oh, I’ll give you a million dollars for it. Then guess what?
It’s worth a million dollars because somebody’s willing to pay a million dollars for it. And when we think about that in the term of Jesus Christ and his atonement, each one of our lives is worth worth the price that someone was willing to pay for it and Jesus Christ did. He paid for it, and he paid an infinite price.
For us, And he would’ve done it if you were the only one, right? Whether there’s a billion of us or there’s one, or there’s one. He was willing to to pay the infinite price for us. And so that’s how much you are worth. So I just love that.
Karen Papin: That, that was such a good point. And I, I love that analogy that you used too, and apparently your little puppy agrees too.
[00:26:00] So and then I realized, I, I had a question in my notes that I wanted to ask you that I haven’t asked yet, and that is, how has your understanding of your spiritual gifts changed your relationship with your heavenly Father?
Becky Squire: Oh, it has changed It. A lot because I, I feel like it’s something I’m constantly studying, right?
It’s not something that I’m just gonna like, figure out and understand completely. Because again, we can develop spiritual gifts that we haven’t had before. We might, heavenly father might wanna give us spiritual gifts at one time. And then not have them at another time. Right. It’s just an ongoing process.
And so learning to lean on him and trust him that that the spiritual gift that he’s giving me at this time is for a reason and we’ve gotta figure out what that reason is [00:27:00] and just do our best to, to share our spiritual gifts. And yeah, so I just think it helps me to trust him more.
Karen Papin: That’s so good.
So good. Thank you. And what is one small and simple thing that those listening can do today to take action on what we’ve been talking about?
Becky Squire: One small and simple thing. You should take my spiritual gift quiz. If you follow me on Instagram or if you don’t I have the link on Instagram. I have the link on my website.
It’s pretty easy to find anywhere I am. And it’s free, and it’s only eight questions. And I get so many responses from people saying, this is what it says in my patriarch, the blessing, or this is what people say about me all the time. So I feel like it’s really accurate.
Karen Papin: Awesome. Well, yeah, I’ll have to check that one out too.
Okay, so Becky, thank you so much for coming on and oh, one more question is how can people follow you?
Becky Squire: Yeah. Instagram at Becky [00:28:00] Squire. B-E-C-K-Y-S-Q-U-I-R-E. Becky squire.com. That’s pretty much where I, where I am.
Karen Papin: Okay. Pretty easy to remember. Yeah. Yep. All right, Becky, thank you so much for coming on the Divine Podcast today.
Becky Squire: Thanks for having me.
Karen Papin:
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You can find that on Amazon by searching the Divine Worth Journal by Karen Papin, or through the link in the show notes you are of worth. You have a purpose. The Lord loves you and he believes in you, and only you can make the impact on this world that you are meant to make. Join me next time as we talk more about divine worth and potential.
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