Differences Matter

The eclectic. It’s what enhances flavor. It’s what generates strength. It’s what produces loveliness.

Chili requires different kinds of beans and other ingredients to make it amazing. 

Grammy award–winning choirs are composed of singers with a mix of vocal ranges. 

Gorgeous Autumn displays require a glorious array of colors.

Top concert bands feature a variety of brass, wind, string and percussion instruments.

The best football teams have tall, lanky players; shorter, quicker ones; and heavier, stronger guys. 

Prize-winning gardens display many colors, shades, heights, and textures.

The United States of America grew to be a rich, powerful country by meshing together a variety of cultures, landscapes, food sources, religions, education, status, and abilities.

The importance of having variety isn’t an accident. The Creator planned the universe to work that way. Sameness could have been His main ingredient had He so desired. But He apparently wanted differences, even opposites: 

• The Lord didn’t just create the heavens; He created “the heavens and the earth.”
• God didn’t just stick with darkness; He said, “’Let there be light,’ and there was light,” night and day.
• Abba Father didn’t just leave water to cover everything; He created the sky to separate the waters.
• The great I AM didn’t just rest w/ lifeless space; He created land and vegetation to grow on it. 
• The King didn’t just quit with vast expanses of light running into vast expanses of dark; He created the sun and moon and stars.
• The Holy One didn’t just leave the sky, land, and waters sterile and empty; He created birds and fish and every kind of land animal to fill them. 
• Father God didn’t just end w/ the creation of life; He “created mankind in his own image.”

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

And within mankind, the Lord created a vast array of uniqueness. There are those who are short, tall, intelligent, simple, slow, fast, slim, heavier, physically weak, muscular, dark-skinned, light-colored. 

There is you, and there is me. Each with different looks, mannerisms, and aptitudes, but each equally valuable. Our sameness looks inviting on the surface, but deep down it’s the differences that matter most. The differences allow us to work together as a stronger ONE. 

I’ve always enjoyed being around those with similarities, but over the past decade I’ve been learning to celebrate our differences. Because together, our differences create incredible beauty and power.

“For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. … If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But now God has placed each one of the parts in one body just as He wanted. And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? Now there are many parts, yet one body.”—1 Corinthians 12:13, 17–20)

Reflections: What’s one difference you appreciate within your family? 

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Linking with Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience in 2013 with my Joy Dare list  for Multitude Mondays (#1830–1850, read the entire list by clicking here):