Romans 12:4-5
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
As I write this, Sydney and her cousin Vance are on the floor doing the Cha-Cha Slide while Will is standing on the bed shining a flashlight on them like a spotlight. At the same time, I’m listening to my wife and brother-in-law talking to my father-in-law about how the high efficiency washer and dryer set we bought awhile back was the best purchase we’ve made in a long time. Yep, lots going on in one house, by a lot of different people, and all of it is completely okay.
This is what I love about the body of Christ. It’s nothing new, this great love for the variety among God’s children. People in every age have encouraged the church to embrace it rather than create rules to make us all act and look alike. Some of us are a bit louder than others. Some like to talk more. Some even have odd ideas about how to do things. But the bottom line is that is we’re in the house, then we’re in the family.
The good news is that there’s a never ending supply of space in His house. The house I’m in now is going to seem like it shrank in about 8 hours when the other 7 family members arrive, but God’s house never gets overcrowded. Sure, it can seem like there’s a ton of crazy believers all around us at times (and they can get on our nerves), but that really just means that His family is growing, and that’s the way it should be.
Now, as a parent of younger children, I sometimes crave the silence that I know will come when my kids are gone. But I also know that when that day comes, I’ll miss the sounds that come from a full, somewhat crazy, house, and then I don’t mind the noise I hear now. Perhaps taking a view like that about the craziness we sometimes see in God’s house would go a long way toward our enjoyment of the way it’s growing.
Besides, you know you want to get a little crazy sometimes, too.
Don’t you?
