I do not like cold weather. In fact, I can go so far as to say I hate cold weather. I personally think beginning in September, the Lord should allow us to have fall temperatures until the day before Thanksgiving and then send a blast of cold that runs through Christmas night and then begin spring. I do not like the cold.
Yesterday, it was cold. I woke up cold and couldn’t seem to get warm all day long. My solution to “bone chilling” cold days, as my mother used to call them, is making a big pot of soup.
I ran to the grocery store to gather my supplies, grabbed my soup pot and began chopping the ingredients. I had a large variety of vegetables. Some required more chopping than others. As I was making the soup, I began to realize the body of Christ is like a pot of homemade vegetable soup.
Stay with me now…Vegetable soup is made up of a variety of different vegetables, just as the body of Christ is made up of a variety of people [1 Corinthians 12:12].
While a vegetable can stand alone, there are some vegetables you wouldn’t choose to eat as a side dish; however, you eat them in vegetable soup. The body of Christ is greater than the sum of its parts. There are a variety of people you know who you have relationship with in your sphere of influence. Yet, there are some people you only meet and develop relationship with because you are a part of the body of Christ. Like my precious friends in Ghana I met on a mission trip. I would have never encountered them otherwise. It is because I am part of the body of Christ that my life is richly blessed with more wonderful relationships than I would have if I wasn’t.
And finally, vegetable soup is best when it has been heated on multiple occasions, because the vegetables start to break down and their flavors are mingled to give you the single flavor of vegetable soup. When the body of Christ comes together to support one another through difficult times, as one member is broken down or struggling, we lose our individual identity and begin functioning as one….as Christ.
So, on a cold, winter day in January, as I stood in my kitchen making vegetable soup, I found myself thanking God for each of you and the impact the body of Christ has made in my life [Philippians 1:3].