God Knew What God Was Doing

I was an impressionist, and she was a realist. In my church in Pennsylvania, my clerk of Session was a very different person from me. I’m all about painting in broad brush strokes and she was all about dotting the i and crossing the t. I’m all about the end product with many possible paths to get there (as long as it’s ethical); she was all about established procedures and rules. There was definitely plenty of reason for us to have clashed.

We never did. Instead, we complemented each other. A broad stroke painter can use someone to cross the t and dot the i. A person who’s all about established procedures can benefit from a coworker who wants to think outside the box. She and I were more together than we were apart – we did better ministry for the church together than we did apart.

What a joy that God created different people with different gifts! While we might sometimes yearn for others who think the way we do, can you imagine a whole church of Ken Pages! Yuck! Even Ken Page doesn’t want to be a member of that church!

1 Corinthians tells us:
“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. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would 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. And if the ear would 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. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 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." On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.

Let’s value one another with our different gifts. Let’s thank God for one another with our different gifts. God knew what God was doing when he created each of us, and when God gathered us together in this church. The Lord even knows how to use our differences to deepen our walk with God. We just have to let God work in us. We just have to trust. Take some time to look at all the different kinds of people that God put in the world, and give thanks for each of them.