Unity vs. Uniformity

Two weeks ago, my daughter posed this question:

In light of being frustrated with herself (and likely a squabble with her little brother), she wanted to know why we couldn’t all just be the same, think the same, and make good choices every time. I can’t say I blame her line of thinking. Even as an adult, I have found myself scratching my head wondering why God wouldn’t just make me to do exactly what He wants me to do… or why He gave us all different minds and two people could process the exact same situation wildly different. Ummm… any spouses feeling me on this one?

Paul describes God’s design in 2 Cor 12:12-27.

One Body with Many Members

12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves[a] or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body.17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts,[b] yet one body.

21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Her 8 year old brain could process that God DID create us differently, and she understands that He gave us all the option to choose Him or turn away from Him. But her question is in the WHY.

Baby girl, there are just some things about God’s ways that are so far above our own ways, we may not understand till we are in heaven.

(I wonder when that line will get old…)

I asked her what she thought and we had a great conversation about robots. God could have created a bunch of people that were all identical, perfect, and He programmed to love Him.  But how much cooler is it that God created each person unique, and with a choice. Wouldn’t you rather create something that can choose to love you, than create something you force to? And wouldn’t you rather make 100 different rainbow loom bracelets, each with their own pattern and colors, rather than have 100 identical pink bracelets?

God is so powerful and so creative that He uniquely designed each one of us. AS HE CHOSE.  Did you catch that in verse 18? King James Version says “As it pleased Him”. So the answer to the “why”… because He wanted to. It made him happy. He chose it.

We can speculate about His creativity and being created in His image, and so many other attributes of God. And verse 24 tells us that He composed the body so that it would be different but unified. He gave us our bodies as an example of how we come together as the church. Even the parts that seem less honorable, He bestowed more honor.

God didn’t create us to be uniform, He created us to be unified.

In His perfect wisdom He designed us uniquely so we could be better together. Learn from one another. Serve one another. God designed us to synergize long before that was a business buzz word. We are greater together than the sum of our individual parts.

We can come up with a list of benefits of His “One Body with Many Members” design – but what would your list look like for the WHY behind it?

Because He Can.

Because it pleased Him.

What else?