I remember a story I read in a book a few years ago. An electrician had a tragic, job-related accident that resulted in the loss of his right arm. His mind didn't think so, though. To his mind (as a separate entity?), the arm was still there, still intact. Just twisted around behind his back with severe electric-shock sensations running from his (non-existent) fingers into his shoulder. That's pretty horrific. In order to heal the pseudesthesia (phantom limb pain), as well as the odd postion in which he felt his limb, a psychologist told him to stand in front of a blackboard with his eyes closed. And to imagine rotating his arm back around and writing with a piece of chalk on the blackboard. It took many weeks until the man was able to sense his "arm" at his side. Where it belonged. The phantom limb sensation didn't go away, it just wasn't causing him pain anymore.
I met a man upwards of seven or eight years ago who was missing a leg. Not sure how it happened but as I talked with him, standing behind his pickup while he sat on the tailgate, he told me that he felt his "leg" through the open tailgate. He also mentioned how his phantom leg became sensitive to changes in the weather...
This is some weird stuff and if you wondered where I was going with all this, here it is.
We are the Body of Christ. And if we're not walking with Him as we are taught by the Holy Spirit "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Corinthians 2:13), we'll end up being absent and unable to be used of God when He needs us. Worse yet, we could end up causing Him pain. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption." (Ephesians 4:30) The sad thing is, He still feels us. When we're not walking with the Lord, we're like phantom limbs.
Paul speaks elsewhere in greater detail of the members of Jesus' body as members of a human body: "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ." (1 Corinthians 12:12)
"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee" (Matthew 5:30) With reference to this stark comment of Jesus, we are the ones who offend Him and subsequently, we are the ones who wander away. And as I mentioned yesterday, all the gifts and talents and purpose and possibility will be skewed and used for purposes other than God's.
Let God use you, this is the point. Why would we be want to be an unusable part of His body? "If the foot shall say, because I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?" (1 Corinthians 12:15) One of the ways that we prevent God from using us where we are is because we have this high-minded concept of where we should be and it's according to us and our opinions based on our limited knowledge. But aren't we all where God has allowed us to be placed? Am I smarter than Him? No. In no way.
Another aspect to this is that wherever we think we are supposed to be in life very well may be based on the truth concerning our gifts and talents. Yet God wants to develop them in obscurity and darkness so that when the light comes in, it's always a source of humility and inspiration, not blindness.
So if it means you have to (proverbially) spend hours and hours writing with your eyes closed in order to come around, then so be it.
Who knows how God's gonna use us when we allow Him to get us where He wants us?
Sure, He used a disembodied hand to write the message on the wall in Belshazzar's palace (Daniel 5:5) and He could certainly do that today. But today–now, we are His hands and feet ladies and gentlemen. The "temple of the Holy Ghost which is in [us]." (1 Corinthians 6:18)