A Chainsaw with a Wish
This past Sunday, straight-line winds up to 80 miles per hour blew through a great swath of our community. Many of our church members suffered damage. Our church property did. My own home. However, I was at RISE Middle School Camp in Eagle Rock, Missouri on Table Rock Lake south of Branson. As a pastor and friend to all these dear people with real and, for some, significant damage to their homes and property, Electricity was out in over half the homes in the service area of our electric cooperative. I could do very little.
However, that is when God’s grace was demonstrated through His people. On our church GroupMe accounts, people started reporting in, checking on others, and seeing what was needed. One person let everyone else know that he had a chainsaw and desired to help anywhere he was needed. One person became two, three, and many. Before the end of the day, even though all the electricity had not been restored, all the properties had been cleaned up or there was a plan in place. As of today, I am happy to report that everything is done.
What makes this possible?
Brothers and sisters in Christ who desire to serve each other (Romans 12:9-13).
Brothers and sisters in Christ who love each other and recognize that when one member hurts, they all hurt.
For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. For in fact the body is not one member but many.
If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?
But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” No, much rather, those members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary. And those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor; and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty, but our presentable parts have no need. But 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. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-26)
I rejoice in the way that our church at Sonrise takes time out to do each one their part. And, over and above. So that they said, “I have a chainsaw and a wish to help anyone who needs it.”
I’m happy to be in a chainsaw toting church family willing to help each other when it is needed at the drop of a hat. Praise the Lord!
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