Written June 10th, 2017
The Body of Christ
A Collective Term that Includes All Believers
1 Corinthians 12 & Ephesians 4
In Zambia, month 6, all of the men on my squad were placed together for the month. They called it Manistry month or Zambroia. This is the one month of our entire Race where the guys get to be all together and alone for an entire month. At the end of that month we all came together for a debrief. During this time we got to learn about what the guys discussed and how they grew. We watched videos that were made of their time, and one such video made was one on being the body of Christ. (You can find that video here).
The guys had gone through and said what the person behind them was in the body of Christ and why they believed they were that part. It was so spiritually encouraging for them, and I latched on to that.
My team lead, Hannah and I were discussing what we wanted to do for each of our individual team times and found that we wanted to do the same thing, discuss being the body of Christ, so we decided to team-up and co-lead that team time.
We decided that we didn’t want anyone to be swayed by what others said, so we each had our journals and a pen. For ten minutes we prayed and wrote down what we thought we were in the body of Christ along with why. After those ten minutes, we passed our journals to the person on our left and they wrote what they thought we were.
It was beautiful. Reading my teammates words was incredible feedback.
“Kara, you are the hands. You serve. You give of your time freely through using your hands to do whatever you see needs to be done. You make things happen, putting them into action. Where there’s a need, you fulfill it. You may not want to serve in the ways you do, but you see the need for someone to serve and step into it, not waiting for someone else to act. You humble yourself as Jesus did when He washed the apostles’ feet, you do what is less desirable or unpopular, you lower yourself down in order to serve those around you and love those around you. As the hands, you often hold onto things that aren’t yours to hold onto or your burdens to carry. You love people in your serving, but make sure to also love yourself and open those hands to let God have what you’re holding on to and so that He can also love you” ~ Meagan Dooney
All of the messages written in my journal correlated and it’s amazing how they did. I didn’t get two of the same thing, but they all had the similar why’s behind them.
“You are the back muscles of the body. Ironic that back muscles came up since you’re the PT expert. You live in the back of the whole body, not much seen at first but very much noticed and appreciated. Back muscles are always moving. They are always ones that grow and strengthen the whole body. You are like a back muscle that is well toned. It works out regularly but because of that it brings stability and strength. It is hard and firm when pressed. It shifts to bring the body back into balance. It is flexible. You have the gifts of strength, growth, and stability, but when used incorrectly, or overused, it gets damaged and hurts very easily. It throws the whole body out. It has growth influence. When you don’t go towards what God has made you for or overwork yourself it isn’t good. You begin to hurt and the rest of the body does too.” ~ Elise Swepston
“Kara, you are the joints. I think the reason the Lord highlighted joints for you is because you flex for what the needs is for the rest of the body. You are a flyable person, but if somebody is doing something you know is going to hurt them, you will restrict flexibility. Joint will move according to what the goal is , but they will not bend backward. If they do, the whole body feels the pain. When you are passionate about something you fight for it. You are a supporter, servant, and strong. You love people very well by doing and using these gifts.” ~ Allyson Buttshaw
All of these held many similarities, but one of the biggest similarities is what will happen if that part of the body overworks itself. The damage that is done.
“KARA! You’re the spine. It affects everything in the body. It has major influence. You have major influence. It needs to be taken care of; it needs to rest, be stretched, and strengthened continually because if it isn’t healthy, parts of the body won’t be healthy. That’s the kind of influence you have. The spine is protected by muscle and it protects the spinal cord. it’s important. It’s strong. You know many things: logistics, the race, blog recon… You’re always on top of it. The spine knows many things. It affects all parts of the body, and when it’s aligned positive health is increased.” ~ Crysahna Suarez
“Kara, you are both ears and knees. The characteristic of ears. They listen, that’s obvious. They take in all sorts of sound, discover the direction it’s coming from. But being an ear is more than just listening. It’s about being a constant. Ears or listening brings encouragement and support without ever having to do anything. Its an engrained part of what it is. You are known to be a supporter, you don’t ever have to do anything for it to be known. Okay, now knees. They create functionality and flexibility and mobility. When they are healthy they can bare great amounts of weight and helps the things around it function, mainly and specifically the leg. But when it’s not it clicks, it rubs, it can’t bare any weight. But keep it healthy and it is one of the strongest parts.” ~ Hannah Erickson
God needs to be on the throne and the center of my focus every day.
When my focus leaves my Creator is when I am going to overwork, bend wrong, click, rub and get out of alignment. And that’s what’s cool about the words my teammates said. It’s making me aware of how I am not only going to hurt myself when my eyes are removed from Christ, but how I am going to hurt and negatively influence the whole body of Christ.
We all have a role in Christ’s body. No role is unimportant because each is needed for the body to be whole and work as Christ intended it too. When one part of the body is damaged, it causes the rest of the body to overwork in order to compensate and that can cause more damage. Never think that you do not have a role to play. God has chosen you and has given you a role and He has given you the power to use that gift to edify the rest of the body.
Till Next Time,
Kara
