April 8, 2011

Good Evening,

Most people relate to causes, events or other people.  Whatever our reasons for wanting to be connected, we achieve certain gratification.  Why?  Why am I drawn to certain people and why do I do what I do?  What drives me and sets me in motion as from day to day, even when I don’t feel like moving?  I can come up with good excuses for not doing things I should be doing,  like, “I am not as strong or as young as I used to be, or I don’t know how to do this or that, or somebody else will do it.  What keeps me going, I mean really making me put the “pedal to the metal?”  I know some of you might be saying it’s because I am stubborn.  Maybe I am too stubborn to give in to my weakness from my accident.   But I believe that the ultimate answer to all these questions lies in the fact that we all have a need to be a part of a “greater whole.”  So, we attach ourselves to whoever or whatever satisfies that need.  The important thing is that we make the right decisions to make the right connections and stay focused.

God created each us uniquely with a specific and definite purpose in mind.  Unfortunately, we often gravitate away from His “greater whole.”  This occurs because we lose our (yes, here’s that word again) FOCUS on “Greater Whole” which is the BODY OF CHRIST.  Each member of the BODY, no matter how weak, or how strong,  is of vital importance to the other.  I am always so blessed when I see persons with disabilities who do not allow their disabilities to become handicaps to prevent them living wholesome, joyful lives and serving others.  In fact it makes me feel down right guilty for ever complaining about anything and guilty for not doing more to serve others.  I have to admit that there are times when I feel that I can’t do certain things and feel tempted to not even try.  The point is, where I may be lacking, others are strong, thus enabling us to compliment each other’s gifts to get God’s work done as the true ambassadors we were called to be.  None of us should think any less or more of ourselves than we ought to, because we all have something to offer to the “greater whole” since we are supposed to be a part of it.

Paul expresses it  like this in 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.  Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body,” that would make it any less part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be?  If the whole body were hearing, where would be the sense of smell be? … The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”  On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.  But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.  If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.  Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

Since God has given me the honorable privilege of serving Him through service to others I am certainly going to give it my best shot as I aim for my “new life” in Him.  Gotta “represent” the BODY, you know.

Please remember to continue to remember all of our prayer concerns and be especially blessed today and always and know that I love you.  abp