YOUR OWN SPECIAL WORK

"He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does it's own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love." Ephesians 4:16, NLT
Everyone has days when they feel unimportant, like they don't have anything special to offer.
I know I have had more than my share of days feeling like that.
When I am tempted to feel that way, though, there is a four word phrase in the verse above particularly important to grasp.
"...it's own special work..."
This phrase makes it clear that as a treasured creation of the Lord, you are created with a purpose - and not just any purpose, but a special purpose that is unique to you, that makes you a crucial part of the body of Christ.
This is the part where it's tempting to look at our own skill set and still feel as though there we are replaceable or interchangeable parts. "There are others that can do what I do, and they can do it better than I can," you might grouse.
While that might be true, this verse, and at so many other places in Scripture it is clear that there is no other you. There is no other person living who possesses your unique combination of skills, talents, hopes and dreams in the measure to which God has given them to you alone.
The Psalmist writes, "Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous - how well I know it!...How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered!" (Ps. 139:14, 17)
It is God who created you, and it is God who gives you your own exclusive place in the body. And that part is essential to healthy function of the body as a whole.
You have a role to play, whether that role lifting up a brother or sister with encouraging words, mowing the lawns, or changing light bulbs. Everything you do to bring life to the body is essential, just as every part of your body is essential to it's healthy function.
So, if you are struggling today with where you fit in, I pray you will begin today by at least grasping this truth - you are a rare jewel in the kingdom, and your part in it matters, no matter how small you may feel like that is.
Hold on to that, and let the One who created you to be unique and special, grow you into your "own special work", too!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FINDING LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS - RACE REFLECTIONS

It is amazing sometimes how God's plan can so vastly differ from my own. In the past couple of days, I have begun to reflect on my experiences at the Run for the Rocks Half Marathon, and the aftermath thereof. A week ago, I was approaching it with no real concrete goal in mind. I planned to take it easy, and run little more than a relaxed (for me), leisurely pace - a chance to recover after a difficult, but fulfilling, summer of racing. But somewhere about three days before the race, I started to feel like God's plans for this race were far different than my own. On His leading, I decided to run the race to support and represent Prodigal Ministries of Kansas, a small men's transitional shelter I have been involved with on several levels for nearly a decade. It felt like a calling to be a voice of light for a ministry that, on so many levels, changed my life and my heart many years ago when I was in a dark, dark place. With this renewed focus put on the race I was r
Read more

MAKE YOUR DAYS COUNT

Nine years  ago  last Monday, I ran my first road race. Eight months  ago  today, I finished my third marathon. But four months ago, the real race began.   I have spent the last four months literally, and figuratively, having my heart tested over and over again.    Physically, the aim has been to diagnose exercise-exacerbated chest soreness through an extensive battery appointments and tests culminating in a heart  cath  Tuesday which leaves me sidelined, even from lifting my daughter, for the next two weeks.   So far, the results have been positive, in a sense. There are some issues my heart that go along with getting closer to 40 – some leaky valves and now, it appears, some slight narrowing of the arteries. So, as long as it’s monitored, I am not, God willing, going anywhere anytime soon.   Hmm...God willing.   These words carry a lot more weight and a lot less cliché now. I have spent a lot of time the last four months wrestling with my own mortality, at t
Read more

THE JAVA FOR OUR SPIRITS

Read: Lamentations 3:19-26   "Oh,  taste and see that  the  Lord  is good!        Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!"  Psalm 34:8 ESV   When I step out of bed in the darkness of pre-dawn morning, the first thing that usually comes on, often even before the lights, is our coffee maker.   That first cup, the first sniff and of the full-bodied aroma of coffee awakens the  senses  to the new day to come. There's a  certain comfort for a coffee drinker like me to grasp that first hot cup in the silence of the morning, to take that first deep breath filled with that aroma in. There's a certain renewal in that first cup, that first morning taste of coffee.   As our single-cup maker  whirs and hisses out  the first cup of coffee, I shut the bedroom door so Staci can keep sleeping, then I pull out my Bible, journal and whichever devotional material I happen to be working through that morning.   It has not always been that way, though.   Troub
Read more