Todo el cuerpo...

My roommate thought I was crazy the other night as I walked around our casita, snapping photos of colors, patterns, objects... crawling under beds, taking twenty photos of the dish-towel, almost falling to my death as I balanced atop the "twisty chairs" for a new perspective.

Do you ever have those moments??? When suddenly it is not only "fun" to experiment with colors, it is "necessary"??? Who knows if that shade of blue will ever look the same again???

As I look around some days, I see all the patterns that we, as a people, have created... the colors we propose to have invented... the order in which things fit into our lives. Things we choose, we think we create, we design to fit our world "just so." If the color, object, pattern doesn't fit into our world, our lives, we casually discard it... leaving it for someone else.

I am so glad that our Father in heaven doesn't do that... that His "tastes" don't run in racist, purist, or elitist directions. Who would be able to make the cut? Certainly not I.

As Isaiah 64:8 says, "... O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand."

We all are the work of His hand... not part of us, some of us, the ones who have blue eyes, or only those who are dark-skinned. All of us... designed for His purpose, His use, with the Master Potter's hand. And each of us has our own role to fulfill, our own talents to bring... our own mistakes with which we can royally mess up.

It seems that talk about the "body" of believer's has been coming up quite a bit lately... about the place of each and every person as a living, moving, vital member of that body. How without working in accord, the body is pulled apart - literally at the seams. Disintegrated from within, bursting without. Unable to function because of a disjointed effort at Unity.

I Corinthians 12:12 says, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ."

If we are striving to be Christ-like, and Christ is as one with a healthy, unified body of believers, it makes sense that we would strive together for a common goal, a common desire... and that when one member of the body is weak, that the rest should help ease the burden, suffer with the same suffering...

Ephesians 4:16 reminds us that, "[Christ] From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."

We are working together to edify the "body" unto God... the edification of His holy works, grace, and love. If we, as the body, cannot work together, and instead falter in our footsteps, our outreaches, our love... how will we be able to convince others that they should become part of the body of Christ?

This is not to say that we will be perfect - we all know we're far from that. But if we cannot lift one another up, forgive, and love again... Christ's body is not moving, reaching out, giving hope. We are stuck trying to repair the gaping divisions among us, and never look beyond to others who have a need and a desire for God's love.

My prayer for each of us is that we can fulfill our part in the body of Christ... and that we can continually learn to give ourselves to His keeping and molding... even if that means breaking us down into the smallest particles and beginning all over again.

If we all have our eyes on the Father, and our hearts and souls following His guidance... the body will not falter. And the love of Christ, His glorious salvation, can continue to go forth in truth and in sincerity.