Why are differences so crucial to all of us, both inside and outside of the Church?
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
There you have it. God’s genius, laid out in a simple three-letter word in the very first verse of the Holy Bible: and.
God created heaven and earth. Light and dark. Male and female. From the very beginning, the Master Creator has been all about “and,” a small function word we use to connect words or phrases. It denotes inclusiveness and sometimes difference, but always, always connection. It’s what makes and so powerful.
God, in His wisdom, created the world and everything within it to be different. He made sure no two people were exactly alike, to the point of giving each human being a unique fingerprint. He made sure no two bodies of water or landforms or animals were exactly alike. Everything He made, everything around us, is different—divinely different.
Living among and with differences is what makes our world so beautiful. It’s how God intended it to be—spirit and body, pleasure and pain, joy and sadness, life and death.
Lead image fromlds.org