Restoring Life: Unity in DiversitySample

Orthopedic surgery has a reputation. Strong and hard-working, the people within this industry get things done. It’s a well-respected specialty that helps people get back to their work, sports, and passions. Everyone has a friend or relative who needed orthopedic surgery. As an orthopedic surgeon myself, I would like to think we are indispensable. 

The femur is important, and nobody can walk without it. It takes a lot to break as it is stubborn, holding up under large amounts of stress. Of course, we also know the body doesn’t function with only femurs. Smaller bones grant function and precision that a femur cannot. Take another step back and realize that the body is not just made of bones but of other organs that look and feel different.

1 Corinthians 12: 22-26 invites us to step even further back from ourselves and realize that we aren’t the most important person in the room; that despite our egos, the way of the Gospel is contrary to our pride. When life is good, our dependence on God wanes and our independence and pride swells. We build idols around the things we have created by our own hand: our family, our career, or our wealth. 

It’s easy to love those who are similar to us or who look like us. It’s harder to love those who act different, look different, or maybe even serve a different purpose—they might be very hard and painful to love. But it is the broken who have God’s heart. As followers of Christ, if the body is not functioning as a whole, then the whole body suffers. When there is injustice or racism, we should be affected and pained. We cannot build walls to separate ourselves. Each member is needed to create an entire body. When we disregard those that look unimportant, unnecessary, or small, we lose function and the ability to accomplish the body’s purpose. It’s only when we recognize the importance of each part that we are able to rid ourselves of divisions that we have created. 

          - David Chong, MD

Questions to think about: 

What are your most proud achievements and accomplishments? How would you feel if they were destroyed?

How have you created division or separated yourself from others?

Who are the weak, unprotected, unpresentable, or less honorable people that God has specifically placed in your life and how are you caring for them? 

If you cannot think of any, why is that so?

Prayer: Lord, everything I have been given, everything I think I have earned, everything I have in life is from you. None of it was deserved, just like your grace and mercy to redeem a sinner like me. Use me to serve those around me, even if it hurts, even when it is hard to love. Open my eyes to the world around me. Expose me to their pain that I might be able to protect, love, and create unity in the same way God did for us.