Find your place in the body of Christ (2)

Do you feel like joining a different church where people are “more like you”? A team of missionaries to Kenya were being driven across the plains to their destination by a Masai tribal escort. En route, their attention became riveted on the herds of wildebeests and zebras migrating together. Their escort explained why two massive herds of such different species would travel together. He said that while wildebeests have poor eyesight, they have a keen sense of smell, whereas zebras have good eyesight and a poor sense of smell. So together they were less vulnerable to attack because their differences compensated for their weaknesses. Paul wrote, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?” (v. 17 NIV). That reminds you of those zebras and wildebeests, doesn’t it? When we join a club, we usually choose to be with people who are more or less like us. But membership in Christ’s body throws us together with people who are as different from us as a hand is from a nose. And while those differences can rub you the wrong way at times, they are differences God designed to benefit you. Zebras and wildebeests don’t have to like each other, but their survival and success depend on getting along together. Your spiritual growth doesn’t depend on agreeing with everybody, but it does depend on loving them enough to live together agreeably!