Unity

"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ."
- 1 Corinthians 12:12
I recently attended a church rally, where the speaker talked about unity. This made me start thinking about why it seems so hard for people to be united. In the United States, we have this idea that "united we stand, divided we fall". I agree with this quote and believe that there is power in people who are united. However, even though we believe this, we still are not very united. People still put each other down, and people still don't work together. People always try to find differences and try to separate others, rather than find similarities and come together. In groups, people are always excluded, because they aren't "good" enough, or because they believe in something else, or because they are different in some way. Why do we do that? Why do we always try to separate others because they are different than us? We all seem to believe that unity is good, but we don't live out that belief. In the book of Corinthians, Paul uses a body as a metaphor for the church. The body is made of many parts, but the parts all make up one body. The key thing here is that there is one body, not many bodies. The parts of the body were made to work together, not against each other. If the parts were not working together, the body would not be as efficient as it is meant to be. This is how we are supposed to be. We cannot work against each other, or else we will not be able to do achieve as much as we could if we worked together. Paul continues and says that if one part suffers, the entire body suffers with it; if one part is honored, the entire body rejoices with it. If we exclude one part of the body, thinking it is not useful, we will suffer. A part of the body cannot ignore another just because it is different. Similarly, we cannot exclude people just because they are different than us. Different parts of the body have different functions, but they all work together to create something that would and could not be there before. Walking is not achieved by one part of the body; it is achieved by the parts working together. So why is unity so hard to attain? I think it is because we expect people to change to what we want them to be. However, we have to learn to accept people for who they are. We cannot expect people to become something they are not, we have to realize that they have a different function within the "body". Lastly, to become united, there has to be a common purpose. It is near impossible to become united when people have different purposes. There has to be a common purpose in order for people to work together. "United we stand, divided we fall."
-Smart