Responsibility

Yesterday, I was challenged to take a look at my life and evaluate the relationships in my life.  In all honesty, this challenge to re-evaluate couldn't possibly have happened at a worse time in my life. 

However, it's not really MY timing that matters.  It's not about me and my own selfish, petty desires at all...it's about learning how to serve God with my life through my thoughts, actions, and attitudes.  So it's all about God.  It's always been about God...and it always will be.  My life's purpose is to glorify Him.  This is where relationships and community make it or break it.

I want to share some verses that I've meditated on about community:

"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.  Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." Ephesians 4: 11-16

In these verses, it says that we are supposed to build up the body until each part works properly.  I'm not working properly, and I recognize the importance of being teachable.  As part of this life-long challenge, I am going to be stretched in learning how to be taught. 

I am asking for help in refinement.  I can't do this alone - I will need guidance and I need to know that when I'm wrong in my words, actions, and attitudes...I can depend on the body, my community, and my closest relationships to correct it. 

This is just the beginning of the process.