It all happened so quickly!
On a beautiful afternoon earlier this year I was taking a pleasant walk in the garden of the retirement village where I live. Suddenly I was falling to the ground, stretching out my hands to break the fall. My right hand took most of the impact. However, someone had seen and help was on the way.
X-rays revealed a broken little finger. The therapist ‘sentenced’ me to six weeks in a splint making sure the fingers couldn’t move. Suddenly I had to do everything left handed. I couldn’t drive my car,, use a knife and fork properly, or play the piano.
Ordinary tasks became difficult and time consuming, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, washing dishes, even reading a book. I had to ask someone for a lift if I needed to go somewhere. It has always been a habit to pray to find someone I could help, even if it was just having a chat with a lonely person, but here I was, needing help myself! I didn’t know how to handle it.
To make matters worse my car’s battery went completely flat during the six weeks it was parked outside . Fitting a new one also proved complicated as it was a very old one.
After a couple of weeks I began thinking seriously about how God designed the human body. Once you have experienced what I went through, the words of Paul to the church become a lot more powerful. Here is what Paul says to us in 1 Corinthians 12:14-25:
14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honourable we treat with special honour. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honour to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
Just as my body could not distance itself from my broken finger, we cannot distance ourselves from our hurting brothers and sisters. To do so is to deny that we are a body of Christ. No matter how little we think of ourselves, when we don’t play our role, we can handicap the church’s ministry. Is your local church handicapped?