It’s a profound understanding to reach.
God created you individually, each one of you a unique masterpiece, and He knew exactly what He was doing when He did that. He knows and relates to you for who He created you to be. At the same time, you are part of something more than yourself and will only thrive as part of a communal entity. That entity is expressed brilliantly in the family – the relational ties that call for responsibilities to raise and respect, nurture and navigate, cultivate and care in all directions so that people grow deeper, higher and further, reflecting the key family values founded in Father God.
The challenge, then, is to know you’re an individual and appreciate that you’re part of something greater. It’s a challenge that humanity has been brilliant at messing up time after time, generation after generation, in culture after culture. It’s not a critique of intentions and the heart behind the efforts. We can undoubtedly applaud – if we want – those efforts, with those intentions. Despite that, the outcomes have missed the mark, mainly because we refuse to return to the foundation of Father God. It's a struggle we all face, a balance we all seek.
Usually, we desire to establish the basis elsewhere. A trend, a philosophy, a movement or a creed that seeks to empower us to think we can work things out independently. We might take terms and sentiments that have some biblical reference, but with that text being so old and problematic for the modern mind, we’d rather disassociate ourselves from the source and celebrate our thoughts and our bases to play out how the dynamic works. Surprise, we end up with extremes that idolise the individual and confuse the collective or deify the collective at the crushing of the individual or the hodgepodge murky muddle.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not waving a flag to say I have the answer and have experienced how to do it perfectly. No, not me. What I am doing, however, is comparing how to work things out on the foundation of Father God. I stress the Father aspect because being a part of the family of God is crucial to getting an understanding that is more in line with what reflects His plan. His plan is the best one, with Him being our Creator.
His plan says something glorious. His plan establishes that those who belong to Him and recognise Him as the foundation are part of His masterpiece. Together, that’s who we are. It’s not something we can do in a solo exploit or something that magnifies any other individual over everyone else. Likewise, it’s something that we are as each of us recognises the individual part we play in the project.
I recall working for an organisation that focused on getting business done through groups setting up projects, monitoring progress in the project and celebrating accomplishing the project’s goals. More often than not, each project would have project teams, though the accomplishments were celebrated as those of the organisation with little to no recognition of the individual contribution. Being the kind of organisation it was, there was a desperate grab for people to go to the more popular parts of the project team. The desire was to be the leader or coordinator so that you could get some aspect of the glory. Usually, that meant using people to get the desired goal and forgetting the people once the goal was achieved or conveniently blaming the people if that goal was not achieved. For competitive types, they found worth in the organisational model. It was perfect for types who enjoyed minutiae to highlight them for their ends to look good to the powers that be as a whole. A lot of wonderful media presented a delightfully harmonious organisation that was working together and achieving so much. That media was in the organisation, and others were pushing messages, hoping that people would focus on that rather than what was happening with people struggling with the pressure.
The Body of Christ – the brilliant masterpiece of Father God – is not a machine with disposable and more desirable parts. It’s not a machine that needs to churn out results and will eliminate all parts that don’t conform to particular types of people. The glorious workmanship of God, created for good works in Christ, requires us to see the part we play in the project, how God values that part, and our role in that part. Working out those truths of the individual and the community flourishes in the life of Christ. The flourishing happens as we note what God presents in His Word about that dynamic from His relationship to Israel to the development of the church after Jesus ascends.
We’re good at messing things up. God is good at restoring us and helping us understand and live out His glorious plan. Let’s look to Him again to help us do what is right in His sight so that we can display that brilliance together.
For His Name's Sake
C. L. J. Dryden
Shalom
