Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well (Psalm 139:14 NIV).

I take a lot of pills in the morning. Supplements, allergy, blood pressure pills. A lot of pills some of which are very small. I take a whole handful at one time. This morning one of the little pills went down my bronchial tube. My brain sent out a red alert to let the body know that it was at risk for choking. I could feel it in my chest, not my esophagus. Mucous surrounded the pill, and I began to cough profusely. After a few minutes, I coughed up the pill from my bronchial tube and the threat was eliminated.

I then cooked my egg for breakfast. When I took it out of the pan, it started to slide off the spatula. I grabbed the egg with my hand and the microsecond I did, my hand jerked away. A microsecond later I felt the pain. My hand had withdrawn before I knew it was burning me.

Our body is a marvel. God has programmed our body to keep itself healthy, to protect itself, and preserve itself when outside forces seek to destroy it. My body instinctively knew the pill was going where it was not supposed to go. Mucous began to form around it. I began to cough to keep it from going down into my lungs. My bronchial tube started to constrict and pulse trying to expel the intruder. Eventually, my body won the battle and preserved my health by expelling the pill. All automatically. I did not have a thing to do with this feat.

My hand jerked away from the hot egg before I ever knew it was hot. Marvelous. Had my hand waited for me to sense the pain, my hand would have been burned badly. What a God! What a magnificent creation we are!

Paul compares the Body of Christ to the physical body. Each part has a specific function to perform which keeps our spiritual Body healthy, protected, and persevered. The beauty of the physical body is that each part knows its place and its purpose. It never tries to be another body part. If each part of the body stopped functioning as God designed it, we would be spastic and would soon destroy ourselves.

How sad that religion is the cancer that seeks to destroy the Body of Christ. Religion is based on performance and behavior in order to please God, rather than totally depending on Jesus for everything in life. Religion causes us to covet the gifts of another. It coerces us to compare ourselves with others to ascertain our self-worth. It makes us feel inferior by ranking some gifts and talents about others and causing us to covet what other members of the Body have.

There are no small parts to play in the Body of Christ, just as there are no small parts to play in our physical body. I thanked God for the mucous that surrounded that pill this morning. It was just sitting there waiting to do what God created it to do to keep my body from being harmed. I thanked God for my nervous system that kept my hand from being burned. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if the Body of Christ functioned the same way?

Blessings,

Kenny