SUNDAY DEVOTION: Know Your Role

Everyone contributes to the cause

A professional football team has 53 players as well as uncounted coaches, trainers, and staff. Every person on the team has a role to play. Quarterbacks, running backs, and wide receivers tend to get all the glory, but skimp on your linebackers, offensive linemen, or long snappers and you won’t see much success. That’s not to mention the value of great coaches, medical staff, and even the folks who carry the equipment. A team of 53 Patrick Mahomes’ would be much worse than a team of 1 Patrick Mahomes and 52 average players.

Ever since getting involved in Idaho politics I have heard grumblings about this person or that person. Why won’t this senator speak more forcefully about important issues? Or, conversely, why is that representative spending so much time talking about things and not working behind the scenes?

All of us have roles to play in the movement to preserve liberty in the Gem State. Some of us write about breaking news and big ideas, while others write detailed policy papers helping lawmakers understand complex issues. Some of us are in front of the camera, some of us are in the background. Some of us run for office, some of us support those that do. Some of us have time and energy to knock on doors, some of us are busy with work and contribute money instead.

All of us are valuable and needed.

The Apostle Paul addressed the very same issue in his letter to the church at Corinth, though he didn’t use a football team as his example.

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. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 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. 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. 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? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

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.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 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, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

1 Corinthians 12:12-26 ESV

Find your niche. Understand your role and do it to the best of your ability, but appreciate others who take on different roles. We suffer together and we rejoice together. Most importantly, we work together, continually building a freer and more prosperous society. I’ll see you on the field!