The Missing Link in a Balloon Assembly Line

 

            This weekend a good friend of ours’ son was having a birthday, so we decided to decorate our house for a quick makeshift surprise party.  My youngest was excited so was in one of those ‘Mom.  Mom. Mommy!  I want to help now!’ moods and I was trying to give her things she could do.  When we started to work on blowing up the balloons and tying string on them, the mass chaos was getting me aggravated.  Then my oldest daughter was trying to help and we were making what was supposed to be a fun even into drama.  I decided to give each kid a job and then we could turn this task into somewhat of an assembly line.  I was attempting to get order into the midst of this. 

            “Ok, you can cut the strings.”  I said to my youngest.

            “But I don’t want to cut the strings I want to blow up the balloons.”  She responded.

            “Fine, you blow up the balloons.  Your sister can cut the strings and I’ll tie them all together.” I relented. 

            For a brief few moments we were working as a team.  Then my youngest who sometimes can get distracted very easily was getting bored with her task.  I couldn’t tie the balloons if I didn’t have any inflated to tie.  My oldest couldn’t keep cutting string if she didn’t have any balloons to use for the strings.  We had to remind my youngest what job she’d agreed to do, because we didn’t seem to get much of anything done.  Then we all were getting a little frustrated. 

            People seem to like to baulk at the idea of order in church.  People often don’t seem to understand it.  Sometimes yes it is done in a controlling manner and that’s a whole different teaching.  But if you look at the Body of Christ, and us learning to accomplish anything through the eyes of the story above; you might seem it makes sense.  If my girls and I could just do our jobs that we needed to do, then we all would get what we needed to get accomplished. 

            Many people tend to act like my youngest and it can frustrate many around them.  She didn’t want to do the job I asked her to do.  Even when I gave her the job she wanted she kept getting side tracked and not accomplishing it.  This makes production and forward momentum to halt.  It’s easy to brush off what seems to be small tasks but they really can and do affect those around you.  In unity people can work together as a team.

            1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (ESV)

¹² 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. ¹³ For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves^[d] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴ For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ If the foot should 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. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts,^[e] yet one body.

²¹ 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.” ²² On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, ²⁴ which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, ²⁵ that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

            Sadly it seems to me, that many forget this in the body of Christ. We get so caught up in what we want to do, that we forget we are part of a larger body.  I want to encourage you all today.  Figure out what your place is in the Kingdom of God and thrive there.  Do your tasks with excellence.  If we all can do that, we can accomplish more for the Kingdom of God than we can imagine.  There are things you will do for the kingdom that I will never be able to do and vice versa.  God has destiny on the inside of you, find it and FLAME ON for His glory.

            God has awesome plans for your life.  Get excited!