Once you are stripped of all the ways
you used to identify yourself and measure your worth or success, you may
find yourself in a period of being tossed about, anger, jealousy,
desperately grasping anything and anyone to tell you who you are, what
to do, and how to do it... Nothing and no one will suffice... Except
Jesus. And that identity is not "picture perfect servant/doer/goodie-two-shoes" and that measure is not against or determined by those around you.
I am not a singer, I am a child of God and a follower of Christ who has been given a singing "talent"
I am not an actress, I am a child of God and a follower of Christ who has been given an acting "talent"
I am not a program manager, I am a child of God and follower of Christ who has been given an administrative "talent"
I am a child of God and follower of Christ who functions in the roles of "sister," "daughter," "friend"
And so on...
John 4:32-38
But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t
you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you,
open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I
sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the
hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
On being part of the Body of Christ: I might
reap what someone else has sown while someone else reaps what I have
sown... In the end, it's our Head who directs and provides the
resources, tools, knowledge, and strength necessary to do the work.
It's not any one individual. It's many parts of one whole.
Behold, humility: humility to reap what someone else has sown and to sow what someone else will reap.
