How de body?

How de body?

Just thinking of this greeting from Sierra Leone. I love it – it makes me smile every time I think of it, with its reply – ‘de body good’. 

Here in the northeast of Scotland the greeting in the Doric is ‘fit like?’ with the reply ‘fair chaffin’ awa’’. That also makes me smile.

Our own usual greeting of ‘how are you?’ or ‘how’s it going?’ with the usual reply ‘good, thanks’ sounds bland and colourless by comparison. 

But it’s really the ‘how de body?’ which got me thinking this morning. I was reading from 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul is talking about the church, the believers, being the body of Christ. Each member has a different function or gift, none better than another but all equally necessary to keep a body healthy and working well. For the church to be effective, believers need to be aware of their own gifts and willing to use them, and to be encouraging each other’s gifts. Sometimes it isn’t so easy to see what your own gifts are so it’s very helpful to have others point them out to you. 

Lack of self-esteem can easily undermine the full functioning of the body, as we protest that we can’t do something because we’re not talented enough or whatever. But that’s the point, that none of us is able to do anything effectively for Jesus unless we are totally reliant on him, aware of our own inadequacies and leaning fully on his adequacy. Christ is the head of his body the church.

One problem with the church universal is that some of its leaders lean wholly on their own understanding and human abilities, becoming puffed up with pride and self-sufficiency. In humility is our strength. It is only as every believer humbly accepts the gift which God gives her, and steps forward willingly into it, that the church can flourish and become the source of light which God intends it to be in this dark world. 

Now is the time. The world is growing darker by the minute and Christian believers need to shine like beacons in the darkness, offering hope and a future to those who are giving way to despair as they watch the unfolding of events globally. 

Now is the time for every believer to discover and embrace the gifts supernaturally given by God; now is the time for every believer to walk in confidence that God is faithful and more than able to do all that he promises, and that he is always good. Now is the time for every believer to be the individual God has created her to be.

Only then, reliant on our Lord and allowing his light to shine through us, will we be able to hear the question asked of the church, ‘How de body?’, and be able to truthfully reply, ‘De body good.’