One Body, Many Parts
My husband was contemplating this passage from 1 Corinthians 12 yesterday:
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[a] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 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 stop being part of the body. 17 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? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
We have been discussing lately about how weak we feel in certain areas of our lives. While we have been blessed with various gifts, sometimes we can get caught up in feeling down because of our weaknesses. When someone has a strong talent in one area (such as craftmanship) they will likely have a great weakness (such as social skills). But the passage above tells us that this is a deliberate design so we will need each other.
I have missed many years of creativity because I felt I wasn't "good enough". Beliefs like this kill the joy of creating that God has implanted in all of us, as we are made in His image, the ultimate Creator. Only when I felt God was encouraging me to start painting and illustrating His Word was I able to let go of ideals and enjoy the process of creation. Yet I am still lacking in many skills and do not consider myself talented in art.
But upon re-reading the above passage, we had a vision of God's beautiful design for us. Where one is weak in one area, another is strong. Thus together as one body, we become more than the individual parts. Wouldn't it be great if we could be part of a network, where we recognise each other's skills and weaknesses and can offer to bridge each other's gaps?
The idea popped into my head that we could do that with this website. What if we list our creative strengths in our profile pages, and if you wanted to, even the weaknesses we want help with? Ideally, you could use the search function to look for someone whose strength is your weakness.
The idea sounded exciting when we discussed it yesterday. Imagine if you are working on a community art project that requires some carpentry work. Searching for woodworking or carpentry here would point you to a profile of someone who could help. However now when I try to formulate it, I feel some fears that it is too idealistic. Would people feel comfortable being so vulnerable in a private community site like this? What does everyone think? Come and add a comment to this post and let me know your thoughts.