The Body of Christ

For quite some time, I have been unknowingly withdrawn from the body of Christ. I've been blinded by my independence and the desire to do my own thing. So for the past five years, my attention had especially been given to my own pursuits, even if those pursuits had nothing to do with me or my own good. But whether it was trying to put a Band-Aid on another's gaping wound or writing my own love story, I lived to fulfill my own plans and desires.

All of that changed on October 2, 2009. For the first time, I gave God the contents of my heart: dreams, desires, ambitions, passions, plans... I gave Him the junk, too: regrets, pain, bitterness, grief, guilt, sin... For the first time in a long while, my heart was completely clear of everything that was "mine" and I trusted my Maker to fill me with Himself. The results were surprising. Along with the peace of His rich presence, I found that when I surrendered the contents of my heart, God flung me right into the middle of the body of Christ. Stripped of my independency, I lay exposed among all my peers. I feel vulnerable, flawed, and incompetent when I'm in the surrounded by the body of Christ. For the first time EVER, I feel a consistant desire to reach out to those around me, not to provide a helping hand, but to receive a hand instead. "You've been the helper for your entire life," I feel my Savior saying. "It's your turn to be nurtured."

I'm afraid to identify these new feelings. Are they feelings of interdependency or neediness? Neediness carries a negative connotation, but really, it's biblical. Remember what the Bible says about the body of Christ:

"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 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!'" 1 Corinthians 12:12-21

It goes against our human nature to say that we are in need of anything but ourselves. It is not natural for our flesh to need other flesh, but it's a spiritual tendency that we must not ignore. God created us all with magnets that only stick Him, but as we all get pulled and drawn by the Big Magnet Upstairs, we all naturally stick together, too. It just...happens. I'm not going to fight it anymore.

So I'm not going to be afraid to need my brothers and sisters in Christ anymore. Because of the uper-independent life I used to live, I was in a sense, not being a biblical Christian!! I mean, I'll still find my fulfillment in God and have my own personality, but I'll let myself rely on people more. After all, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!'" 1 Cor. 12:21