If I am delayed, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. 1 Timothy 3:15
Have you ever been driving down a busy highway and wondered, “Where are all these people going?!”
It’s part of our nature to want to go places, do new things, and see what we haven’t seen before. It’s also in our nature to invent and build, and so intelligent people have figured out how to engineer complex systems for long-distance travel. An airport, a ship, and a highway system are all complicated endeavors requiring a great deal of thoughtful design as well as time and money to actually build the thing. I can’t comprehend the engineering that it takes to design these systems. Luckily I don’t have to understand to reap the benefits.
But back to the people! Besides all the people driving down the highway at any given time, think about how many people it takes to facilitate a week-long passenger cruise or for a single airport to function. Countless individual people are participating in these systems, each in his or her own way. Some roles are critically important, like an air traffic controller or a ship’s captain. Other roles are not essential, yet they have their value.
Take for instance the lady who recently drove my husband and me in the shuttle bus from our hotel to the airport and then back again a few days later. All day, 40 hours a week presumably, she drives a shuttle bus back and forth. This is her little place in the system. She probably isn’t paid much, but she was very conscientious about making sure each person got to the right place in a timely manner.
She’s just a cog in a wheel, you might say. She could easily be replaced with another driver if she were to leave the job. The systems of hotel and air travel would carry on even if there were no shuttle at all. But some enterprising hotelier has made that service available, adding slightly to the much larger, much more complicated system.
Of course God is the master engineer. He created the solar system. He designed the systems of the human body. He structured all the different ecosystems for land and sea. From the deceptively simple splitting of a single-celled amoeba to the rotation of the earth around the sun, God’s systems are perfectly designed and boggle the human mind.
But perhaps His greatest engineering masterpiece is the church. It’s made up of all different kinds of people all around the world. Each one is just a cog in the wheel, you might say, but each of us has our part to play. Some roles are more critical than others, causing more harm if not executed well, but every role matters to God.
God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part which lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. 1 Corinthians 12:24-25
Yet the church is not dependent on any one person. If someone stops doing their part, maybe they can be replaced, or perhaps the service that person was providing just won’t be available any longer. The system will keep functioning. It keeps going in spite of individual failings, limitations, and even death.
This system doesn’t require any massive structures to be built. We may build nice places to meet for worship, but the church isn’t dependent on any kind of physical building. This system doesn’t require huge sums of money to be spent. You can teach people the gospel for free.
This world is full of busy people on the move. It’s natural that we go and do and invent and build; we get that nature from our Father in heaven. We also get from Him a sense of eternity (Ecclesiastes 3:11). In all of our comings and goings, let us never forget that Christ’s church is “the pillar and ground of the truth,” (1 Timothy 3:15). God designed it and sustains it. We get to participate in it and reap the benefits.
Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. Genesis 1:31
by Christie Cole Atkins
Dear God, we thank You and honor You for the magnificence and the wisdom of all You have designed. All creation speaks to Your perfect knowledge and unlimited power, but also to Your great love because we are so blessed by it all. Help each of us to do our part as individual stones in the walls of Your house, as individual members of the body of Christ. In Jesus’s name, Amen.