A Different Perspective - Are We All Unique Or Uniquely Alike?

A Different Perspective - Are We All Unique or Uniquely Alike?

STEVE AND I LOVE to entertain and often invite guests to our home. As we walk them through the house, they take in our contemporary art. Some of them say, “I don’t get it.”

We’re never offended. We understand completely. We often go to art shows and are baffled by a work or a particular artist—unsure where the artist is coming from, going to, or if he or she was just on drugs while painting.

But we always turn on the art lights and allow our company to spend time with the paintings. After a while, some of them say, “You know what? This stuff is growing on me; I think I’m beginning to actually like it!” Did the art change? No, the visitors merely allowed themselves to be exposed to something different and looked for the things in the art that spoke to them.

I think if we were all to turn on the light and spend a little time with those who are different from us, our attitudes might change too. We might find we can connect with people even if we don’t understand or agree with all their choices. We might begin to appreciate and even like those who, at first, seem so different from us.

My Truth Nugget subscribers have very different life stories. They hail from places as large and far away as Hong Kong and as small and nearby as my little hometown of Bells, Texas. They are distinctive in their lifestyles, their political and religious affiliations, and their life stages. But they all have one thing in common. See if you can guess what it is.

A forty-six-year-old Baptist woman who lives on a white rock road in rural Texas; contrast her with a forty-one-year-old Jewish woman who lives in a high-rise in New York. They have one thing in common.

A fifty-two-year-old president of a women’s league living in the Midwest, recently separated from her husband of twenty-two years; compare her to a thirty-two-year-old president of a gay business association living in the Northwest, recently separated from her partner of ten years. They have one thing in common.

A red-state, suburban thirty-year-old mother trying to balance the budget, the shopping, the career, and the kids; then look at the blue-state forty-year-old single woman, living downtown while trying to balance the budget, the shopping, the career, and dating. They have one thing in common.

Nothing . . . will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus. (Romans 8:39)

Can you guess what these women, so seemingly different, have in common?