At the beginning of this trip, well, before the beginning, at training camp, our leaders mentioned comparison – Comparing yourself to others around you, many of whom you don’t even know, comparing your team to another team on your squad, etc. Comparison is a dangerous thing. It can bring on feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, jealousy, and evny, and it can cause you to strive to be like other people, or even to try and be someone completely different from who you are. So, it seemed an important message, to not let the spirit of comparison in. Now, entering into the seventh month of our trip, it has struck me that I need to revisit this lesson.
As I look around me and see God working in my friends and squadmates, it isn’t a stretch to start thinking, “Why can’t I be like that? Why can’t I have that gift? Why can’t I be that intimate with God?” This pattern of thought isn’t too difficult to allow in if you live in close community with 6 or 7 people, not to mention the times when you are in close community with 50+. As a body, we are all unified in Christ, but we are all individuals with different personalities and gifts from God.
1 Corinthians 12
Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body.’ It would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 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 cease to be part of the body. 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? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
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!’ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indespensable, and the parts that we think are least honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unrepresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatement. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”
That’s a lot to say that I’m asking God what my gifts are, and that I can grow into the man he wants me to be, not someone else. We should embrace who we are, who God has made us to be, and contribute to the body in that. We are all connected through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection and our response to that, and we are all different in the ways that God works in us, because together, we make up the body. A couple of days ago we got the chance to go on a safari. We saw all types of animals: large, small, colorful, monotone, fierce, timid, fast, slow, secretive, loud, and so on. It is amazing how varied and beautiful creation is. If God would take the effort to make such varied and beautiful plant and animal life, wouldn’t he take so much more effort to create us, who are made in his image? Would a cheetah see a turtle by the watering hole one day and decide to move slowly? It would surely catch no prey and die. A turtle doesn’t need speed when it has it’s armor all around it. Perhaps that is a poor analogy, but hopefully you can understand what I mean. Simply that we need God, and we need each other. We are gifted in different ways, and that is so that we can work together, to make each other strong and move in ways we cannot move when we are alone.
For further thoughts about this check out my friend Ashli Hanna‘s blog…
