Think Eternity

View Original

I'd Rather be a Doorkeeper

There's a place for all of us in God's work! "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 

Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 

If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." (1 Corinthians 12:12-27, NIV).

For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [anywhere else]; I would rather be a doorkeeper and stand at the threshold in the house of my God than to dwell [at ease] in the tents of wickedness. (Psalm 84:10, Amplified).

Had this powerful realization in the past few months. No matter the extent to which God uses me for His Kingdom or does not use me ... even if He simply desires me to be a humble doorkeeper, doing mundane tasks for His glory - my heart longs to obey rather than do anything else! Of course, I desire for God to use me greatly, yet my life is surrendered to His purposes and glory.

Reminds me of Brother Lawrence and his classic The Practice of the Presence of God, where he share about experiencing the same level of God's Presence in his prayer times as when he washed dishes for the brotherhood in his monastery.