"I wanna be like you." It's a desire that I think every human faces. We look around at everyone else and think, "Wow. I wish I..." Fill in the blank with relationships, financial status, possessions, personality, WHATEVER. There are very few people who are content with exactly what they have at the exact moment that they have it.
While this wheel of fortunes was spinning around in my head, it got hung up in an unexpected place. Reverse. You see, all of this time while I'm thinking that I need so-and-so's such-and-such, I've also been thinking about how much other people need to be like ME. I'm holding myself up as an example of why everyone should homeschool, use Verizon as their cell service provider, learn to play an instrument, whatever.
Clearly folks, I have arrived. I may travel too much to save up for a car. I might eat too much fast food to lose weight. But I *know* what music you should listen to, where you should draw the line for reading/watching things with magic/sorcery, and the only appropriate length for your skirts. Trust me. You wanna be like me.
In the end, I think of 1 Corinthians chapter 12.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
From here Paul goes into 1 Corinthians 13. The love chapter. See, God's plan isn't for us to all fit into the same cookie cutter. Sure, there are things that scripture lines out very clearly. Honor your father and mother. Don't lie. Don't kill. But nowhere does it say that a woman who wears pants, a man who preaches from the ESV or a child who sings a Disney song will be denied entrance into Heaven. Let's stop arguing these smaller issues, be content with who we are in Christ and let the world see that we are Christians by our love for one another.
