Lately things have been breaking! (Of course, these are very first world problems so please note I am not sitting here like “OMG my cell phone. My fingernails. WAH.”) Let’s be real…most of these “problems” are dumb. Anyway…moving on.
Broken Thing #1: I bought a mini van awhile back and it had this awesome clicker. It was intended to open the sliding doors, the back hatch (whatever that’s called), and of course lock and unlock the doors. After leaving a grocery store with full hands and three children you are trying to keep from being run over, it’s quite nice to push a button that slings open all the doors so you can drop the groceries in the back while the kids are climbing in. About a month ago the battery died. So I replaced it. It still doesn’t work. Dumb!
Broken Thing #2: A few years ago I got rid of cable and now solely rely on my mother and in-laws to keep me posted on bad weather. I’m from Oklahoma. I’m sure you can picture those people standing out on the porch watching tornadoes come at them while there mom is blowing up their phone asking if they are in their basement. Anyway, I have a little apple TV so I can still indulge in my time consuming random shows. Included with this purchase was a tiny apple remote. First off, let me address the stupidity of making apple remotes the tiniest inanimate objects ever. Seriously? If people are constantly looking for a normal size remote, why in the world is it wise to make a remote that could be lost forever in the depths of a couch? A toy box? A laundry basket? A boot? Mine has been rubber-banded to a wooden spoon since I found it after its first adventure of being lost in the mess of my home (for weeks). Again. Dumb! Oh wait…my point. So the battery has started dying. Now when I want to be a lazy American and sit on my couch watching Hulu or Netflix I have to uncover, stand up, walk to the TV, hold the remote right next to the little black box and push the button to make it work.
Broken Thing Example #3: Hulu…hates me! Sometimes in the midst of listening to Alicia share all her musical wisdom and adoring her cool hair…listening to Kelly say she’s married but if she was into women she’d be all about Alicia…and watching Adam and Blake continually make fun of each other…it will just shut off. Or the sound will just stop. Or it will randomly freeze. Then I have to uncover, get up, walk to the TV and turn it off and back on again with my broken remote.
Again, I know…real problems right?
But simply pointing out…these things don’t work as they are intended to work!!
Life is easier when things work as they are intended to work. Right? When they do the job they are supposed to do!
My mom was once at a bible study where the topic of conversation was the body of Christ. In a nutshell she said that she must be the spleen.
Even if most wouldn’t consider the spleen to be a vital piece of the body, just think about the pain it would cause the body if it ruptured. Think about toes…or fingernails…or the duodenum! We need all of these parts!!
12-13 You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
27-31 You are Christ’s body—that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything. You’re familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his “body”:
apostles
prophets
teachers
miracle workers
healers
helpers
organizers
those who pray in tongues.
But it’s obvious by now, isn’t it, that Christ’s church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It’s not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called “important” parts.
But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.
-1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 (MSG)
In a world where it’s so easy to fall into comparison…think about the role God has called you to! What are your strengths? Your passions? Your desires? Use those!!
Okay…bye friends! 🙂
