It’s an old illustration. But it’s also spot-on.

Once upon a time, the animals decided they should do something meaningful to meet the problems of the new world. So they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming; in fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying, and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to drop swimming and stay after school to practice running. This caused his webbed feet to be badly worn, so that he was only average in swimming. But average was quite acceptable, so nobody worried about that – except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of his class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because of so much make-up work in swimming. The squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He developed “charlie horses” from overexertion, and so only got a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist. In climbing classes he beat all the others to the top of the tree, but insisted on using his own way to get there…

The moral of the story is straightforward: Don’t drive a squirrel nuts by asking him to excel in activities for which he is not gifted.

That is the essence of the apostle Paul’s teaching in I Corinthians chapter 12. He says to Christians of every generation, “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (12:27) In other words, if a gathering of disciples is a team, everybody gets the ball. There are no exceptions. We are all ministers with a lower case “m,” and not one of us is expendable.

Then, with rhetorical questions that are just as amusing today as they were twenty centuries ago, Paul wonders what it would be like if Christ’s body had a grand total one part: “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? …As it is, there are many parts, but one body.” (12:17, 20)

Even though diversity is what makes a body actually operate as a body, there hasn’t yet been a church in which a rabbit Christian didn’t wish she were an eagle, or a duck failed to hope that God would somehow answer his prayers so he could climb like a squirrel. But the Lord of the Church wisely remains deaf to such requests. Each of us has already been equipped to serve, and to make a difference wherever we go. The drama of discovering our own giftedness and where God intends to deploy us is too wonderful to trample with a lifetime of deep sighs that God somehow got our call wrong.

Maybe for you the next step is a “first serve” opportunity at ZPC. Check out our Volunteer Expo on April 20, or contact Coordinator for Connection Terri Shrader any day of the year. Come and find out that God has a curriculum for your life and your passions that satisfies like nothing else.