Unique

I think out of all the verses I started this year with – this one has been the most transforming.  It has literally become like a theme tune or catch phrase for me.  I love how God’s word can be like that – something so well known and familiar can suddenly jump off the page and into your heart like it’s completely brand spanking new!

But I really needed to hear it. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I really struggle with feeling like I don’t know where I fit.  I look at other people’s lives and think it might be easier if I was more like them, if I had their abilities or opportunities or circumstances. But I don’t. I have mine, because that is just the way God planned it.

“There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and everyone it is the same God at work.” 1 Cor 12;4-6

We are supposed to be unique. God’s plan is that our story, our journey, our gifts, our challenges and victories will look different to the person next to us.  And indeed the person next to them. I have been very blessed with three precious daughters – they are all wonderful and all very different.  I love each of them equally but I express love to each of them in different ways, because they are different people with different temperaments, tastes and interests. Our relationships are unique because they are unique.  Just the same with my relationship with Father God – it won’t look the same as yours because I’m not you.  The same Holy Spirit living in each of us will give different gifts just as He determines because He knows who we are and what we need both personally and corporately!

And then He takes all our funny knobbly unique jigsaw shaped pieces and fits us together to make the Church! And this chapter goes on to talk about us being put together like a body made of different parts that need each other and each other’s unique gifts.  The things that make us different are actually the things that make us belong – we need each other.  In Genesis when God made mankind he said we were created in His image – we carry His likeness, we look like our Dad. But for the world to really see who He is – in all His Power and Sovereignty and Mercy and Grace and Glory and…. I could go on – it takes each of us wholly reflecting the part of His image that we carry. It’s no good me trying to be you, or you trying to be me.  A hand can’t see and a mouth can’t hear. It’s only when we are free to display all that He has created us to be and given us to share that the body is whole and more of His beautiful image is displayed!

And then we get to chapter 13 which is the glue that sticks the body together… Love. I had so much fun – I found a packet of love heart sweets in the back of the cupboard and used them as a stamp.  Praying He keeps stamping His love on my heart because it’s only His love that sets me free to be me and sticks us together to be us. And without it I am nothing.

Thanks for reading . Love Rach