Count Your Blessings #111 – Skilled People

This kind of follows on from my last post on Skilled Medical Staff, but I make no apologies for that.

I have been struck recently by the variety of skills that abound.

For weeks now the shower in our en suite (yes we have an en suite) has been dripping. The shower is actually against one of the walls in the bedroom so we could hear it dripping. Most of the time this hasn’t been a problem, but both Sue and I have had a few nights where we haven’t been sleeping as heavily as normal. In our lighter sleep all we could hear was the stead drip… drip… drip… of the shower. It was starting to drive us nuts. I finally phoned the manufacturers of the shower to find out how to get it fixed, they supplied me with a part and a skilled engineer.

Yesterday the engineer came and fitted the new part (he wasn’t supposed to come yesterday, but that’s another story). It took him less than 30 minutes to fit. He knew what he was doing and just got on with it. Now the shower is at peace. No drip… drip… drip… just peace, it’s lovely.

We had to get the person with the skills to come along, his skills were worth it.

Over the weekend we had a classical quartet performing at church. They were all highly skilled musicians who gave us a wonderful evening. We didn’t have to worry about whether they were up to the job, they were skilled. It was great to be able to relax into the music and feel it’s movement.

We are doing some large scale building work at church. While the classical quartet were practicing on Saturday I spent a little time watching two men roofing our new building. It was amazing to see how they skipped up and down the steps and along the roof carrying heavy tiles.

I marvel at these skills because I don’t have these skills. I’m thankful that others do. I would be stuck without them, but more than that, my life would be a lot duller without them.

The Bible talks a lot about the different skills in the church and how they are all needed. The most famous passage is one that compares the church to a body.

The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it. How strange a body would be if it had only one part! Yes, there are many parts, but only one body. The eye can never say to the hand, “I don’t need you.” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you.”

1 Corinthians 12

A whole load of different skills, but all part of the same body.

I have to admit to sometimes being the hand saying to the ear – “can you get one with something”. The Bible tells us that those who are listen have as much value as those who run around and do. It’s not just coincidence that these words about the body are followed by some of the greatest words about love ever written.