~ Joy in the BODY parts of Believers, and 'the Brains' behind the actions

Jesus, THIS week...YOU have illustrated the great and loving power of Your Spirit's ministry TO ME, through the Body of Believers that I travel in each day. I THANK YOU with a most abounding spirit of praise and gratefulness. You ARE the King of me... and given the proper need and seed, You also ARE the Servant of me. The mystery inexplicable.

Your Spirit, manifest in my companions through this very trying, fruitful and blessed week of physical and emotional testing, spiritual victories and failings.... WOW !!! You are so much the illustration of KINDNESS and INSIGHT into me, through others, when You WANT to bless me and sustain me.

I wondered aloud, in conversation with a newly nearby member of this Body You've placed me in. He's a Pastor, You know him. The one I may travel to India with, if it be Your will. We were comparing travel logs. Travel through life in the Spirit with You. Mostly we have been comparing notes on the contrast between us... and on the different pressures and moldings, by Your Potter's tools, that we have experienced.

We have lead such exceedingly differing lives. He, immersed in the Body since birth, as a Pastor's kid. Me, immersed in the Body from birth through my teens and then, left to my choosing, I have allowed You to build Your Body into my walk through associations that You plant. There has always been a Body of Believers in my sphere of travel. I need one, immensely. But the 'definition' of that Body, being by Your mercy and grace, has varied endlessly. From times of scanty few fellowships with individuals, to corporate Body within a Church structure to IT fellowship to workplace fellowship to neighborhood Bible Study or Home Fellowship to decades long fellowship with treasured Christian friends.


He, is of the corporate service, with undeniable sheep as preacher, prayer leader, administrator, founder, education in seminary, diligent service in the Church structure, typhoon relief, financial overseer, hospitals, soup kitchens and orphanages.

I have been under Your thumb of many trials, testings and calamities for over 3 decades, being molded in the fires of adversity and oppression.

He has been blessed and nurtured and cared for, always. According to his own testimony, You have been exceedingly good to him. He has an innocence. He has been to a nightclub once in the US and was overwhelmed by all he saw.

I've been delivered from war at age 16 on foreign soil, come through Your healing from drug abuse, resultant mental illness, brain damage, bulemia, repaired a body smashed with permanent damage by severe auto accident, 7 year's of lyme's disease, ... I live among very broken, neglected and abused..... fought for and with the Federal Gov't in court...

yadda yadda ya... the point is not to impress YOU, Jesus, but to illustrate our great differences. Differences You KNOW, yet they astound me! You built us so differently before gathering us together. Still, we see the world with the same views on almost every subject we explore. This is what astounds. We are KNIT because WE ARE OF YOU ! That is exceedingly excellent and most nobly GOOD, Jesus.

In the way that You are Servant, through this servant of Your's... I am deeply HUMBLED. This week, he has protected me, extracted me from the fray of attack in the spirit, showed insightful, and perfect, kindness, gentility and humor toward me. All the while inversely, one who is of my own household and family, has been punishing me, shunning me and neglecting me for being angered and scared through their choices of treatment of me, trying to subvert my humanity with emotional and social force for their own comfort.

The wheat bows, the darnel stands tall. The right 'they' encourages, lifts and builds us into Your Spirit's will in our lives... into Your destiny for us. The wrong 'they' punishes, shuns, neglects and makes our hearts shake with fear and sorrow. Even the right 'they', when 'under the influence' of the wrong spirits, can become the wrong 'they.' Help me, and the one who hurts me, to abide in Your Spirit in mercy and forgiveness.
Sometimes, Jesus.... Your service to my immediate needs is beyond description. I imagine I barely did this JOY justice with written words. May my spirit's sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving and worship be better understood to Your precious heart, my King. Thanks for being the Brains behind the operation of my life, Jesus.amen.
__________________