Message Minute (Close Enough to Feel It)

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:26

Get an infection in your little toe, the smallest and farthest part of you, and watch what happens. Your whole body runs a fever. Your heart rate climbs. You ache in places that have nothing to do with your foot. The body cannot quarantine the suffering of one of its parts.
Paul uses that biology to describe the church. When one person suffers, everyone carries the ache. Most of us understand that half. Someone loses a loved one and the church shows up with meals and hugs.

The second half is harder. When one part is honored, every part rejoices. That means celebrating when someone else gets the thing you’ve been praying for. Their business takes off while yours struggles. They get the baby while you’re still waiting. Rejoicing in that moment takes real surrender.

Both halves cost something. Suffering with someone costs time and comfort, maybe a phone call at 11 p.m. on a weeknight. Rejoicing with someone costs the spotlight. A self at the center compares, turning someone’s pain into an inconvenience and someone’s joy into a threat. But a surrendered self is free to weep without being drained and celebrate without being diminished, because its worth was settled at the cross.

None of this happens from a distance. Someone near you may be running a fever right now, smiling at the door while falling apart inside. Take a step closer. Move one seat in. Show up for someone’s fever or someone’s party. Whichever feels harder is probably the one God is inviting you toward.

Reflection: Is it harder for me to show up for someone’s pain or celebrate someone’s win, and who is God nudging me toward this week?

Prayer: Lord, I don’t want to keep my distance anymore. Make me part of a body that aches together and celebrates together. Free me from comparison so I can weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Show me one person who needs me close, and give me courage to move one seat in. Amen.