This month’s character trait is unity. Unity is working together to get more done. People seem to have always agreed that unity is useful. In the Bible, the ancients used unity to try to build the Tower of Babel all the way to God. Ancient empires came to pre-eminence because of their military’s ability to achieve a high degree of concerted action. The pyramids were built, the Great Wall of China completed and astronauts landed on the moon all because of human beings acting together for a common goal.
So unity is a good thing, right? I mean great things in music, art, architecture, science, and technology all happen when people work together. One of the fun things I do with my daughters right now is watching Youtube videos of Riverdance. What a fantastic display of unity! Scores of people dancing in perfect time is quite the inspiring thing to see. The girls always ask, “Just one more, Daddy, please!”
Yet unity is a two-sided coin. For every great human achievement obtained there is something terrible which unity has achieved as well. I’m haunted by pictures of old-time lynchings in the American South or by old videos of rallies where hundreds of thousands of Nazi sympathizers gathered, in unity, to celebrate their brand of nationalism and prejudice which led to the death of millions in the Holocaust. Here’s the thing, unity connected to a bad goal produces terrible results.
In last month’s FX giveaway, The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family, Lencioni offers a great question to help us clarify where we are headed as a family. He asks, “What is your family’s top priority right now?” In other words, “Where is your family headed?” Is it towards a “better life?” This is not a terrible goal, but one that could lead us the wrong way. It leaves us open to disunity in our families as we inevitably have different visions of what exactly a better life means. I believe the only goal ultimately worth pursuing in unity is having a joyful relationship with our Creator through faith in His Son Jesus. This goal will lead us together to a good place as a family.
-Pastor Seth
“What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.” (James 4:1–2, ESV)