April 24 2012

Imagine that together we walked up to a mountain.  I looked up at it and said to you ‘hmmm, I don’t like the look of that.  It’s so very different from the kind of paths I usually take.  In fact the more I look at it the less I like it.  So I’m going to simply change it.  I’m going to make this mountain into a valley because I suit valleys much more.’  What would you say to me?  Would you tell me I was crazy, that it would be much easier for me to get used to the mountain then to change it? 

That would be sound advice and I don’t feel like you would have to argue with me for long.  A few attempts would surely show me that you are right.  Yet I’ve been thinking about how that is exactly what I do with people.  I’m thrust into a relationship with someone (though work or church) who I just don’t really like or understand.  And I think the answer is to change them, making them more like me.  My response shows clearly that I think their differences are weaknesses.

I’m not talking about mean or cruel or deeply flawed people – not anymore flawed then I am anyway.  Just people who are different in tradition and thoughts and ways from me.  For you it could be the chatty women who sits next to you at work – she’s efficient and kind but she just goes on and on!  Or it could be a person in your home group who doesn’t have the same theology on certain things as you – he still loves the Lord, that’s plain to see, but you can’t understand the way he thinks.

I was praying about someone I know who fits this category the other day when it occurred to me that these relationships – the ones which aren’t so easy – are an opportunity from God for me to grow, not an opportunity to try and change the person.  In Ephesians Paul talks about the affect of being different, together.  He wrote that Christ -

“makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” 

- (Ephesians 4 v 16).

God loves and adores and has chosen the people I don’t like or understand to be a part of his body just as he has chosen me.  My prayer today is that I might learn to acknowledge the awesomeness of those who are so different from me.