As I am learning to bake, I am also learning the importance of each ingredient. While some ingredients can be substituted for, or even left out completely, doing so changes the final product. A half teaspoon of cinnamon left out of a cookie recipe changes the taste of the cookies. Too much or too little yeast and the bread doesn't rise properly. Even something simple like using bread flour when all purpose flour is called for can make a differnce in the taste and texture of the finished product.
It's the same way in life. While it is sometimes necessary to improvise and play McIver, things work better when we use the right part and the right tool for the job. God created each of us with different abilities, talents, and interests so that the church will have all the tools it needs to do God's will. In First Corinthians 12 Paul tells us: "we can each do different things. Yet the same God works in all of us and helps us in everything we do."
I remember fairly early in my ministry, shortly after I became an Emergency Medical Tech, talking to a colleague who ran the local jail ministry. "How do you do that?" I said. "My hair stands on end, my palms get sweaty, and my stomach churns just thinking about going into the jail."
"How can you go to a car wreck and deal with injured and bloody people?" She replied. "My hair stands on end, my palms get sweaty, and my stomach churns just thinking about what you do." No one person has all the gifts, and we are called to use the gifts we have, not to try and be what we are not.
Each of us is a different ingredient in God's recipe. Without each of us the recipe won't work right--and when we try to be what we are not, it never comes out right. Be who you are. Do what you are gifted to do. Work with, not against, the other ingredients, and the recipe will turn out just as God intends.
Be blessed,
ChaplainDann
