Problem Solver

There are a lot of things I love and appreciate about my husband. But lately, nothing more than his God given ability for problem solving.

I often tell him that after so many years of developing this skill, he's certainly earned a doctorate in it by now!

Yes, that's my "Dr. Dave", fixing a problem for me!

But that's not the only problem he's been fixing.

The past few weeks have been extremely demanding, with many different types of things "out of sorts", kind of like my dishwasher.

As he worked on it this afternoon, spending hours figuring out what was wrong and then fixing it, I thought about all the different talents and abilities in the body of Christ, and how we need them functioning together.

While one of Dave's gift is sorting out problems, others are blessing people by their financial or mechanical abilities. Some are gifted at reaching out to those who are hurting, teaching a Bible study, or leading a school. Other lend a listening ear and bring meals to those in need.

Some pray, some give, some build, some preach.

And we need them all!

"All of you together are Christ's body, and each of you is a part of it....the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ." 

Those are Paul's words to the church in Corinth, exhorting them to use their gifts and abilities to bless and care for the body of Christ. 

Watching Dave these past weeks use his gift of problem solving to bless the "body", our community of believers far and wide, brings me so much joy, as I know it must the Lord too. And you know what? Dave gets a lot of satisfaction out of solving those problems! That's because he's doing what he was designed to do.

I have a working dishwasher again today, thanks to my problem solving husband.

But even better, I watched as he contributed his gift and talent to the "body" (which happened to be me today!) and was deeply blessed by it. Not just because of my dishwasher, although that was a nice benefit, but by his sacrificial manner of using that gift for the good of the body.

Oh might we all readily and happily contribute our gifts and talents to the body, valuing and appreciating what God's given to each one of us.  As we use our gifts for building up of the body of Christ, He gets lots of glory and many are blessed and cared for.