Hard Drive Crash

It happened last week, the dreaded click of death, a blank screen, and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. My hard drive died and along with it everything that I had stored on my computer (and don't ask whether I had it backed up or not...that is just annoying, and I am not going to tell you!). Well, I am no computer expert and so the first thing I had to do was take it to someone to have it looked at, and to have the hard drive replaced. Well, maybe it was having no computer that led to a bit of free time to think but I found myself thinking about the hard drive a lot. Yes, it began as fretting, and then a bit of mourning, but eventually I got over that. I then started thinking about the role of the hard drive and how, in a certain sense, it reminded me of Jesus and the Body of Christ. Again, I am no computer expert and perhaps there is an even better analogy to a brain or the head of the body but the hard drive did get me thinking about this. The hard drive is where all the information and applications are stored. As I discovered, without the applications you can't do very much. I still had many computer components, working parts and hardware, but without the hard drive it was all pretty useless. Without the applications from the hard drive, there seemed little that the computer could do. Again, I admit that my analogy may be flawed due to my limited understanding of computers, (if you have a better one feel free to add it in a comment below, I would love to read your thoughts) but it did get me thinking about the church and the role of Jesus as head.
The church, as Paul said, is like a body. It is a collection of parts (individuals) each with an important role to play, which is informed and directed by the head, who is Jesus. Jesus directs the church, gives it its purpose and mission and leads it to accomplish his plan and purpose in the world. Without Jesus, however, the church would just be a random collection of appendages and parts, and with no common purpose or direction would just be a mess to watch. It would be very difficult for the church to accomplish anything of meaning and purpose. The loss of my hard drive rendered my computer fairly useless to me. I had disks and information as well as some hardware, which held a lot of potential, but without the hard drive, the potential was unable to materialize as productivity. I think the same could be said of the church. Without Jesus to lead it and drive it, there will not be much productivity in the name of Jesus and little accomplished to bring God honour and glory.