Fitted Together

One morning, I looked carefully at the stone wall that enclosed part of my vacation retreat. It is made of natural limestone rock, some pieces so large that it surely must have taken two men to place them, some small enough that I could have held them in my hand, and every imaginable size and shape in between. I noticed how the builder had carefully fitted the stones together. Where one jutted out at a sharp angle, he had placed another with an opposing angle next to it. If the shapes were not complementary enough, a small sliver of rock was slipped between them, so that no wide gaps had to be mortared.

My thoughts turned to the Church—the whole Body of Christ as well as the local congregation with whom I worship. There are some "pillars" among us, wonderful bigger-than-life leaders who are critical in holding together what we are building. A great many other people surround them, each of them lending beauty and strength to the work. Like the rocks in the wall I was examining, none are alike but all are important to the finished creation. What one lacks, another possesses. Where one is weak, another is strong. Where one's gift may not fit a task, another's is well-suited. I am encouraged by the fact that even small shards, insignificant alone, had a place of importance by fitting in where they were needed to fill the cracks. Pillar or crack-filler, we all have a part!

"So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit." (Ephesians 2:19-22)

MaryMartha

Scripture is from the New American Standard Bible, used by permission of The Lockman Foundation, http://www.lockman.org/