Living in the Spirit
July 30, 2015

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 4:1-16

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. –Ephesians 4:1-16

It has taken me a lifetime, two careers, and retirement to even begin to come to the understanding, much less accept it; God made us different on purpose. God created us to be interdependent, to need one another. God apparently equipped us with the skills to work together. Few of us tap into the vast array of skills that each of us have. We skim the surface of several and hone in on one or two perhaps. I fear not many of us in recent years have tried very hard to enhance our working-together skills.

We do work together on occasion. Particularly here in Oklahoma, we have responding to disasters down to a fine science. Had to. Our response to the Oklahoma City bombing was praised as being exemplary. It was forged on the backs of responses to tornados and other natural disasters. Our disaster readiness also could probably be traced back to the Dust Bowl of the great depression and even to the Indian removal to Oklahoma in the nineteenth century. I am glad we do respond but we really have little choice where disasters are concerned. It is in and of itself the source of motivation for response.

Where working together seems to falter is in the everyday challenges of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves and overflows into seeking the common good. The result of failure to do either of these activities is not as readily apparent as a foundation where a house once stood and a family that is now homeless, but the ramifications of our not loving our neighbor as we love ourselves and not taking the time to address the common good in the long run has even more serious consequences. We need to dust off our working-together skills and use them until we are one.

Prayer: Lord we need your instruction and guidance in developing our working-together skills. Make us whole, make us one. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.