I urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit
through the bond of peace
Paul's Letter to the Ephesians 4:1-3
During college football season, there are "divided houses" and that commonly means that two of the adults in the house went to the opposing universities, so UF vs GA, or FSU vs UM, and so on. Many of us like to wear the team jerseys and then I know of one family in which the losing team has to wear the winning team's jersey for the weekend.
Many of us know that household divisions, splits in opinions at our work, and even in our social lives when there are disagreements, all of those cause angst. We cannot be expected to "wear the jersey" of someone with whom we are in a disagreement. Divisions undermine our peace. As a people of Christ, let us pray for unity and healing, and that begins within our own lives, as we strive to live in humility and gentleness. Is it possible to simply "let go" of something that bothers us? Can we just hand over to God with patience that unspoken glare, that spoken comment that hurt our feelings, that judgement we made when we watched someone who captured our attention? The answer of course is "Yes!" and you know waht it feels pretty good to simply say a prayer for that person instead of thinking about how disappointed we are, or how hurt our feelings are. I wonder if there's a Jersey for Jesus that we can wear.
