An Arm Alone is Useless

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slavest or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.19 If all were a single member, where would the body be?20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you."22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty,24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it,25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another.26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27 ESV

I realized, a few weeks ago, that I don't feel very reliant on others. While I like to connect with other people and enjoy sharing life together, for the most part my life would go on without them. At first pass, that sounds kind of cold, but I think that it is very much the way that many of us live. We are trained to be fiercely independent and even the most relational among us may be able to fly solo.

What I read above, tells me that this independence is completely counter-intuitive. Just as an arm, alone, is useless, so is a man who relies on no one.

This passage is easy to affirm just in reading it... But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves (James 1:22). There is no quick fix to this one. The only way we can be grafted back into the Body is through time spent with its other members.