When was the last time you thought about your little toe? The only time you ever think of your little toe is when you stub it on the coffee table leg in the middle of the night. Or how about your appendix? When what the last time you gave it a thought? If you have ever thought about it, it was probably when it was inflamed, and you were about to have surgery to remove it.

There are many parts of the body that don’t seem very important. But God has fearfully and wonderfully made the machine that is the human body. It is inter-related and interconnected in such a way that continues to baffle those who study it.

What is most remarkable is that there are no parts of the body that are useless. Just because we don’t always appreciate and understand how parts work or why they are even there, doesn’t mean that they are not important. There was once a woman who lost both her little toes to amputation and had to spend four weeks in rehab learning to walk without them. Think they aren’t important? She knew it!

You are part of the body of Christ. You have a divinely reated place in the body that is your congregation. When you don’t think you are important, or you feel that you don’t have a place, know that you are missed terribly, and the body is not complete without you! When you don’t use the simple gifts which the Lord has given you, the body is diminished. It is weakened. It can’t fully do what it has been given to do!

You have a place and a part to play. Consider it. Pray that the Lord would lead you to embrace and carry out this role. Let the Holy Spirit use you in His ways for His work!

_{©2019 The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Used with permission.}