I had the privilege of leading my final 2012 camp staff Bible study last night. After a review of everything we’d talk about over the summer (love languages, personality type, Genesis 1, God as Creator, Psalm 139, God as big enough to handle raw honesty), we dove into a study of Romans 12 and what it means to live our lives—our uniquely created and gifted lives—as sacrifices of praise who pour love into this world. I’d led studies on Romans 12 before, but last night’s study hit me in a new way—a deeper way—thanks to the Olympics, right butt muscle, and left armpit.
For the past few weeks, my left armpit and part of my shoulder have been going numb when I sit on a certain part of my right butt muscle (gluteus maximus for those who want to use the technical term). I hadn’t understood this odd connection until I did some research and learned that when I sit on a certain muscle on my right (that happens to be the one that I sit on when I drive and sit at my desk), it affects a muscle in my left back, that affects a nerve on my spine, that causes my armpit to go numb. Really? Our bodies are that intricately connected? (Yes. I know that our bodies are intricately connected, but for some reason this particular connection has fascinated me.)
When we speak of the body of Christ, we tend parallel parts such as hands, feet, mouth, heart, and brain. But what about the pleasure organs, the waste removal organs, the belly button, the scalines, the white blood cells, the right butt muscle, and the left armpit? They are parts of the body, too, and, as I’ve learned recently, they are important to a body’s proper functioning, albeit some are more important than others at different points in life.
We need all parts to make the whole.
All parts.
And we need all parts to be most fully themselves, most healthily themselves, which means acting as themselves instead of trying to function as something else, in order to function at our best.
Like many of you, I watched parts of the Olympics over the weekend. I watched the opening ceremony in awe, and I flat out cried as the Olympic flame was lit. To see the torch carried by seven teenagers—by seven of the finest of our future—and to see them embraced by their mentors—by the older persons who had believed and continue to believe in them—and to watch them light individual petals that had been carried into the arena by each country participating in the Olympics—and to watch those petals seamlessly connect with other petals and ignite flames from around the world—and to watch those petals rise up to form one united flame…well…it was absolutely amazing.
I also watched Goksu Uctas, the first Turkish gymnast ever to compete in the Olympics, perform a perfect balance beam routine. Before Goksu, no one from Turkey had considered it possible to compete in Olympic gymnastics. Because she considered it, though—because gymnastics gave her hope and purpose after her life was destroyed by an earthquake—because she trained against all odds, sometimes even practicing outside—she made it to the Olympics. Even though her routine wasn’t complicated enough to compete with the powerhouse individual scores, she did her very best with what she had been given, and she made her family, her coaches, her country, and this American very proud.
Unity in diversity. Doing your best with what you have. Believing in those who have gone before and will come behind you. Understanding your life as connected with other lives and owning the fact that what you do—good or bad—affects the larger whole. Accepting the call to consciously live your life in such a way that you are a living example of sacrificial love…
Those are the things that struck me last night during our Romans 12 study…all because of the Olympics, right butt muscle, and left arm-pit.
What truths are striking you today?
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