On our trip this week we got to participate a wide variety of ministries visiting nursing homes, children centers, and completing manual labor projects. Some of the youth on our trip liked to hard physical labor and felt like they had accomplished something that day if they went to bed with a sore back. Others feel good if they were able to talk to people and connect with them on a deeper relationally. Either way, people often excel in one of these areas and lack in the other.
In Romans 12:4, Paul says: “For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function”. So we have one body, but it is comprised of different parts that have different functions and serve different purposes to us.”
Next he says, “So in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts”. This is such an important message, because altogether we form one body, and in order to carry out God’s plan we all have a specific part and a specific function. We all have different talents and gifts that are specific to us.
Personally, I’m a very social person and I like to connect to others and learn about them and encourage them. With physical labor though, I have a hard time and get exhausted really easily seeing as I’m short and lack muscle. So while we visited nursing homes and children’s centers I was able to work hard and to the best of my ability.
But when faced with a manual labor project, our job was much more physically intense. We did a lot of yard work in the sweltering heat. My team was all working so well despite the heat and had much more tolerance for it than I did. It was easy for me to compare myself to them and feel that I wasn’t needed or as helpful to my group as everyone else.
It’s so easy for us to compare ourselves to others and feel inadequate or that we aren’t as important because we don’t have the skills that others do. Instead of this, I encourage you to think of the skills you do have and try your hardest in whatever field you’re put in. Your skills are important and necessary to God’s plan.
Ultimately, if you’re placed in a field that you don’t feel like you’d do well in or you just don’t want to be there do it to the best of your ability. The important part is that you’re doing it for God and that’s all that really matters. – Megan, 16
Megan teaching on Romans 12:4
