And On That Day…
Unity.
Christianity.
Redeemed people.
Varied beliefs.
Clashing personalities.
Passion and emotion.
Pride and humility.
Showing love.
Standing strong.
Interpreting Scripture.
Living it out.
Sometimes, going through this life can be hard. As Christians, God calls us to unity, but so many things get in the way. Listed above are things that are incorporated in our battle for unity, whether they’re the reasons we want to do what’s right or the reasons we sometimes get it wrong. We are the Body of Christ, but sometimes it feels like we’re just a mess of hypocrites who prefer to talk rather than listen. Sometimes we feel like our little corner of the Church is more about worrying about the person next to us than dealing with ourselves. Or sometimes our corner of Church is fine, but the Church “out there” (on the media and in the articles and floating through cyberspace) just needs to be more like Christ, or even just like my version of Christ.
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Anyone know the feeling? Well, it’s not because the Church isn’t being the Church. Every single person who has God’s Spirit inside of them is a new creation, with a purpose and a place and He’s working good in them. And altogether, we are an amazing spiritual body!
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Then what’s the problem? Heck, I don’t know! I don’t have the answers. But I can speculate. And I think it comes down to this:
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We’re all just humans. And we’re all just different.
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We go through transition times, in our culture and our communities and our world, and things change. We have people coming into our churches who are starting to question things that have been taught for years. We have people searching books and blogs and different denominations to find new revelations. We are all people who are trying to fit the entire universe into our own, little, narrow perspective that we’ve collected these past however-many-years we’ve been on earth. And it’s hard, and it’s challenging, and it grows us, but sometimes we get it wrong.
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Sometimes the things we believe, or even the person that we are, is very different from who we were or who we will be. My 17 year old self is not the same as my 25 year old self; and then another 5 years will change that; and then another 5, and another 10, and so on until we look back and see the many times God has been planting and shifting our lives to broaden our perspective so that it captures more of His. But God’s a whole stinkin’ eternity old, and I think we’ll need a little more time than 70-100 years to figure Him out.
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So where am I going with this?
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Sometimes we can get discouraged when we think about our relationships with other Christians. Miscommunications, betrayals, strong emotions, arguments, words said, words restrained, speaking too much, giving too little… it is so easy to see only the broken parts of ourselves! Shouldn’t Christians be more loving and forgiving then the rest of the world is? Seeing only the struggles can make it easy to be disheartened.
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BUT- No matter how much hurt or pain has passed between other Christians and myself…
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No matter how many times I fail to listen or love….
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No matter how many disagreements or heated words or frustrations of being misunderstood I have experienced…
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I KNOW that in Heaven, this will all be gone!
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Bitterness will be a thing of the past. Hurt will disappear. Anger and frustration and clashing personalities will seem like a fading dream compared to the beauty and glory of Heaven and Jesus’ presence. No matter what our differences are, we still share the same bond of Jesus.
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I anxiously await the day when I can heartily shake the hand of every Christian I’ve ever known, look them in the eye and truly see them through the eyes of Christ. When we can rejoice in who we have become and take delight in each other’s varied yet completed reflections of God. When we can be a perfect Body, in our perfect bodies, and just worship Jesus together in true unity.
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Everything will be made clear. All the seeds we’ve planted will be seen and sown. Our perspective will finally open up to encompass God’s mighty understanding, and everything we’ve ever wondered about will be at our fingertips to discover.
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I can’t wait to enjoy that beautiful freedom and adventure with everybody in the Body of Christ. We can take all of eternity to explore, create, laugh and enjoy LIFE together! Seriously, it’s beyond my comprehension!
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Through prayer, Scripture, and listening to the Holy Spirit, God can lead us to reach more of that in our lives here on earth. But even when it feels like we’ll never make it, we can all smile in anticipation for the day when these differences, that seem so mountainous now, will fade away into the background as God truly shows us His glory in ways that we can never imagine today. Come quickly, Lord!