How Are Your Motor Skills?

Can you relate to this little boy? Can you remember times when you felt like a klutz? You kept dropping things, knocking things over? It took you three tries to pick up something simple, and every time you turned around, you were bumping into someone. How embarrassing when you're afraid to touch anything because you feel like a bull in a china shop! When coordination is slightly off, things happen you didn't plan on.

Our bodies are incredible! The motor skills we developed growing up help us perform actions and movements in a million different ways every day without even thinking about it. For example, earlier today I was stuffing envelopes. It was a repetitive motion, and my mind began to wander towards other things, daydreaming, making mental lists of things that still needed to be done, thinking about how our bodies and minds work. I didn't have to look at my hands and think, "Now pick up the next envelope. Bend the fingers to grasp it. Move the other hand to insert letter." No! It all happened without really concentrating. Even as I type this blog post, my fingers quickly move from one key to the next without my having to physically focus on each letter. My hands have been trained to move the way they need to in order to accomplish a job. Our heart beats automatically. Our feet take the next step when walking. When something doesn't happen the way it's supposed to, that's when we trip and fall. Or...Oops! - we knock over the coffee mug on the table. Then our bodies instantly react to get out of the way and clean up the mess before it spread further.

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." 1 Corinthians 12:12. What happens when we, as part of the body of Christ, don't work the way we're supposed to? We decide we'd rather do someone else's job, have their talents and abilities. When we refuse to focus on what God has given us to do, things don't go so smoothly. It's easy to compare ourselves with others, thinking they are better (or less) than us. But God says, think again. We're not wise if we do that. And if we're not paying attention to what we are supposed to be doing, the results may not be what we, or God, are pleased with.