Colors (10/24/2024)

Colors (10/24/2024)

I was running errands with my daughter yesterday when we came over a hill in the neighborhood, and just ahead of us was the most remarkable display of fall colors in a line: orange, red, green, yellow! And it just amazed me. I just love it when the LORD amazes me. I stopped and took a photo. And as I took in the beauty of that diversity on full display before me, I recognized the greater diversity of our loving LORD’s creation in us. And I found myself uttering a silent prayer: LORD, grant that we may strive for unity as we stand together in our diversity.

The beauty on that street was in the diversity. The red didn’t make the golden any less spectacular. The green didn’t detract from the beauty of the orange. It was each “being itself” that made the others around it all the more stunning and remarkable. And the LORD reminded me, in those trees, that we, too, are called to let our diversity fully shine as we unite our gifts with those of our sisters and brothers. And I am reminded again of Paul’s words in the Letter to the Ephesians:

“Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body’s growth and builds itself up in love.” (Eph 4:15-16)

Truly, we are called to fully exercise and employ all the LORD has gifted us with in love of and service to our LORD and one another. We are created different, unique, diverse for a reason. We aren’t meant to do everything alone, but we are called to join our gifts with others lovingly.

This day, as we go out into the world, let us seek to engage, to bring all of us to the tasks before us, and let us join with one another to become that which we cannot be alone – the living Body of Christ in the world.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.