Friday, October 14, 2011

That Beautiful Body

Gamers were recently able to decode a puzzle that has had scientists stumped for years. According to a Fox news article (see link below), online video gamers took three weeks to decipher the structure of a retrovirus protein that scientists have been unable to interpret for over a decade.

One of the big implications of this breakthrough is understanding the way the HIV virus replicates. With this new code cracked, scientists can create drugs to more accurately target the virus. (See the full article in the link below.).

Imagine the thousands of people who will be able to be treated, simply because scientists looked up from their microscopes and thought, “You know... I think someone else may be able to do this better than me.” They can’t be faulted for taking so long to realize. Haven’t you ever been so hyper-focused on a problem or situation that it never occurred to you to look at it a different way, or to seek help? I certainly have. My view is that turning to video gamers was a genius leap of creativity. 

I’m imagining the body of Christ working together so well, each member using his or her own genius not only to serve the Lord, but also to look around and see which other members can do what we cannot. Yes, the Lord is strong where we are weak, but God also calls us into community that can do things together.

The Lord saw the potential for people speaking the same language, focused on the same goal, as he looked on those building the tower at Babel: “The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6).

God has given each of us different and beautiful gifts. If you hear a call on your heart, but aren’t sure how to accomplish it, look up from your microscope. Maybe someone in your community can do it in a fraction of the time and energy it would take you. That is the beauty of the body of Christ.

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.  Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27)

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Sarah Stirman

"Now the Lord was gracious to Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did for Sarah what He had promised."  Genesis 21:1
http://www.sarahstirman.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/SarahSt


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