Talents and Responsibility

For the past few months, the concept of "talents" has been on my mind and I have definitely been pondering talents and the reason God's gives an individual such gifts. After conversing with my husband over different matters, an epiphany came to me concerning The Parable of the Talents. I shared similar thoughts with my church congregation today and felt that I should also share with you, my friends.
God gives us all of our gifts and abilities. One of the greatest spiritual gifts we are given is the gift of the Holy Ghost. This gift is only given after an individual promises God to obey and follow Him by entering the waters of baptism. This gift is God's part of the baptismal covenant. In like manner, the parable references a man "calling his own servants". Thus, the Lord has called his servants and those who have heard and covenanted are then given gifts. Even the "lowest" servant is given a "talent" which we will refer to as the gift of the Holy Ghost. This lowest of servants hid away this gift by not sharing his knowledge, understanding and experiences of the Gospel and eventually, even that was taken from him as he truly did not love the Lord.
As we develop our relationship with the Lord through the gift of the Holy Ghost, we gain the ability to stand before him and have our "confidence wax strong in the presence of the Lord." As our confidence grows, so does our willingness to gain skills and talents; to do better and help those around us. At no point in time are we allowed to hid away our talents. They are only given to us to build the kingdom of God; not to glorify ourselves, but to glorify Him who gave the gift.
Each one of us has a responsibility to God and toward our fellow man to seek out the gifts God desires to give us and find the way to develop the gifts and build the kingdom of God upon the earth.