I leaned against my grocery cart, flipping through a magazine about dogs. My wife, Jennifer, and I had recently adopted a sweet-mannered mutt. Though her actual pedigree was anybody's guess, the animal shelter called our 40-pound pup a cross between a schnauzer and a terrier. We called her Miqveh [pronounced MICK-vuh], from a Hebrew word meaning "hope." Based on the shelter's suggestion, we clipped her hair short to look like her alleged breed.

Standing in the supermarket, I read about bearded collies. I had never heard of them before, yet the more I read, the more familiar they seemed. Beardies, I learned, have long hair and look like small Old English sheepdogs. I read about the distinctive curl in the tip of a bearded collie's tail. Kind of like the way our dog's tail flips up, I thought.

The article continued to explain that beardies can jump straight in the air, as if boosted by springs.

That's funny, I thought. Miqveh did that recently on a walk.

Beardies thrive on human attention and don't like to be left alone. They are notoriously mischievous.

Yup.

And then there is that unique bearded-collie trait of standing up on the hind legs—sometimes called the beardie hug.

Come to think of it, Miqveh had seemed an awful quick study when I taught her to "give me a hug."

Each trait added up, looking less like a coincidence and more like a classification. Having discovered her true identity, we stopped cutting her hair.

If Miqveh could talk, I imagine she would thank us. I cringe at old photos: Those silly clips made her appear so pathetic compared to the proud, playful, long-haired look of a bearded collie. Beyond any makeover, though, my discovery revealed more about her personality.

"What's in a name?" wrote William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Yet God provides many names for Himself in Scripture—211, according to Knowing God By His Names, a Bible study by Campus Crusade for Christ staff member Dick Purnell. In fact, the children at my church spent an entire year in Sunday school studying God's names.

Realizing Miqveh was a bearded collie helped me understand and appreciate her more. It did not, however, change her identity. Knowing that God is my heavenly Father, or the Good Shepherd, or I AM, likewise does not alter His identity. It just reveals more of that identity to me.

God has placed His many names within the pages of Scripture; I need only look for them. Experience tells me it is worth the read. I don't have to search any further than my pet for proof.

"I lead a good life, I don't hurt others and I've never killed anyone. What more could God want?" You can expose the folly of this belief—that doing good things earns one a spot in heaven—with this illustration:

Faith is like an ice-covered pond. We can believe the ice will hold us above the water, but if the ice is one-half inch thick, our faith in the ice will only get us cold and wet. Faith is only as good as its object. Faith in thin ice has no value.

In the same way, if we trust our own efforts to get us into heaven, we are on thin ice. Why waste time on something of so little strength when we have the Creator of the universe, who loves us and has already done everything to assure our security? We need only accept His gift through Jesus. The consequence of misplaced faith is much more serious than a dunk in the lake.

I burst into tears. Why am I crying? I thought.

I had spent the last hour and a half sitting in rush-hour traffic, trying to find a specific car dealership. I needed to replace a small knob controlling my car's vent and air conditioning.

But was I really crying because I didn't have air conditioning?

No. I sobbed because I felt like God had let me down.

I was still trying to fit into a new city—find my way around, make new friends. But I set out for the car dealership with a small-town mentality. I knew the address, but hadn't thought about city traffic or approaching darkness.

In my car, I pleaded with God to get me there before the 6:30 closing. I felt paralyzed, watching the clock, creeping through traffic. When 6:30 passed, I was sure God would work through a merciful employee who would still allow me to purchase my $8 knob. At 6:35, I quickly pulled into the parking lot and ran up to the display room, where three guys sat around.

"Sorry," they said, "the parts store is closed. But you can go back and see if there's anyone around." I dashed back to the parts store, praying desperately, but the entire place was locked up and dark.

Hopeless, I got back into my car. That's when the tears came, quickly turning to sobs. Why had God let it happen like this? I wondered. After an hour and a half of driving, why was I only five minutes late, with no one around to help me?

As I cried, I began to remember that God is bigger than I am, and He knows more than I do. I had come face to face with my false belief that God should always make things go perfectly in my life.

I learned a new trust in God that day. There could have been any number of reasons why God allowed that situation, but I simply had to trust that God is sovereign. I might not always understand His bigger plan, but I can trust it.

A British expedition set out to climb Mount Everest in 1953. Two in that expedition—Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay—were the first to scale this formidable mountain. However, they could not have accomplished the feat without the entire crew, and especially the selflessness of two other climbers.

Those two climbers had almost reached the summit, but ran out of daylight. They abandoned their quest, and left their extra oxygen tanks behind for the others.

Two days later, Hillary and Norgay reached the peak.

But on their return down the mountain, they ran out of oxygen. If they had not found the tanks left behind, Hillary and Norgay would not have lived.

When we work together, we can achieve a great goal. We pride ourselves on being independent and self-sufficient, but is this how our Father wants us to live out our faith? Does Jesus want us to "go it on our own" or belong to a community of believers? We are a part of one spiritual family, which the Bible compares to a body. In 1 Corinthians 12:27, Paul explains, "All of you together are Christ's body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it" (New Living Translation).

As members of the body of Christ, our identity has three dimensions. We each must be distinctive, dependent and directed.

1. As distinctive members, we each have a unique, significant role in the body of Christ. According to the Scriptures, "God has given gifts to each of you from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Manage them well so that God's generosity can flow through you" (1 Peter 4:10, NLT).

God has generously bestowed spiritual talents and abilities on each of us so that together we can fulfill the amazing plan He has for His church. God is not concerned about how our gifts compare to others, but about how well we use what He has given us for the good of Christ's body. To use our gifts, we need to discover and develop them. We can do this by learning about gifts in the Bible and asking other believers what they perceive to be our strengths. Another way to determine your gifts is to ask yourself, "What needs do I notice first? What tugs at my heart?"

2. We are dependent. We each need the body of Christ, and the body of Christ needs the gifts and service of every member. The Bible declares, "Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of His coming back again is drawing near" (Hebrews 10:25, NLT).

God knows we need to be fed and encouraged by fellow believers. One way we maintain an intimate relationship with Christ is by staying vitally connected to the body. Imagine an ear sitting by itself trying to hear. Equally ridiculous is the belief that we do not need to be a part of a community of believers.

Perhaps we can learn a lesson from one of God's most amazing creations: California's majestic redwood trees. From their great size and age, one would think they have massive and deep root systems. However, a redwood's roots are actually quite shallow. The secret to their strength is that they grow only where each tree's roots can intertwine with the roots of nearby trees. When the strong winds blow, they hold each other up.

3. Finally, each of us needs to be directed. We must work together under orderly leadership for the good of the whole.

The human body is a vast array of different cells working together in concert. The malfunction of even a few cells can cause serious illness. Because of the interdependence of its parts, the human body needs direction, which is the function of the brain. Likewise, Christ—the head of the church—directs the body.

As each distinct member follows His direction, the spiritual family will be united in harmony. When members of the body love each other, they reflect Christ to the world. We read in 1 John 4:12, "No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love has been brought to full expression through us" (NLT).

The body of Christ has a purpose far more grand than scaling the heights of Mount Everest. Christ's purpose for His body is to mature us as believers and to reach the world through us. We cannot accomplish this alone. Only by working together in community can we be Christ's body—His hands and feet—ministering to the world He loves.

Vultures. That can only mean one thing, I thought as I drove up the on-ramp to the freeway.

Sure enough, nine vultures hovered over the carcass of an armadillo in the middle of the road. From the steaming, bright red entrails of the corpse, it had obviously just recently become roadkill. But the scavenging vultures had already made a feast out of the spilled innards.

As my car approached the gruesome scene, the vultures fearlessly stood their ground, staring at me with their beady black eyes. They relentlessly picked at their prey until I maneuvered my car to the side and sped away.

My friends are probably shocked that I would recall such a disgusting image. I am generally a cheerful, optimistic person. But truthfully, my attempt to focus on only pleasant things means that I neglect the ugly parts in my own life. It seems easier to tolerate my sin than to acknowledge the "rotten flesh" festering inside.

Driving down the road that day, I realized that sin is like those vultures. It seeks the putrid areas of our lives and fearlessly picks away at us to destroy us. In reality, if we don't kill the sin in our lives, it will kill us.

Instead of ignoring the darkness in the world and in our lives, we must be repulsed by our sin. Unless I bring my sin into the light of God's holiness and seek to be changed through His Spirit, my life will eventually look like that dead armadillo.