It’s in quotes because I don’t really pray for the blogosphere. Maybe I should, but I don’t. I do pray for some individual members from time to time, when God brings them to mind or I’m aware that they’re going through a particularly tough time at present.

Like Joshua at Razorskiss (”Sorrow“). I pray for him because he opened his heart and bled all over his blog. That takes some courage. And strength. So I pray and thank God for him.

If I did pray for the Blogdom of God (not the aggregator, but all of us Godbloggers), here are some of the things I’d pray for (or, “for which I would pray”) and why. No certain order.

Love

In a couple of ways:

Biting our tongues. First, that we’d be better at interacting with one another in a gentle and Christlike way. I’m not talking about those times when somebody is railing against this person or that church and clearly needs to be confronted and rebuked. There is a time for harsh words, if that’s what it takes to get the other person’s attention or to at least demonstrate the importance of the issue.

No, I’m talking about the everyday posts and - especially - comments we leave on one another’s blogs. Before going any further on this one, let me admit my own failure: I was unkind and unfair to Eric of Ales Rarus in a comment I left last week at Evangelical Underground. I apologized later, but the harm was already done. My sin. No excuses.

Any of you who have read more than a handful of comments around the Blogdom know what I’m talking about. We rip into one another as though we have just found a mortal enemy, someone who has endangered or threatened that which is essential to life. We are demeaning, dismissive, condescending, and hateful.

We would do well to remember that the tongue about which James warns us (Jas 3:7-10) extends to the fingers that rest upon the keypad of our computers.

With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.”

Most of us probably shy away from the use of profanity towards one another - at least in public or out loud - but James tell us in no uncertain terms that we are cursing image bearers with what we say and how we say it. So, I’d pray that we would not do that so much, if at all.

Loving our toes and elbows. A second facet of loving has to do with accepting our differences. We are different, after all, and we will always be different in this lifetime - and, to some degree - even in the new heaven and new earth (don’t turn this into a debate about the eternal state: stay focused!).

We are members of a Body - we say we know this, but our behavior at times betrays our unbelief - and thus we have different functions and purposes. Some are better at one thing and some at other things. That’s a good thing, because there are some things I not only cannot do but do not want to do. But this has nothing to do with having different value or importance, although it may affect how visible we are to one another.

It is striking to me to see that many of us - who deeply treasure and value our individuality - are so unkind to those who are not like us. The irony, of course, is that if it were not for them we would lose our individuality! More on this later.

But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor 12:18-21)

God has seen fit to make us interdependent; it is foolishness and immaturity that makes us go off on people who disagree or see things differently. At the risk of making this metaphor walk on all fours, think of it like this: you may be an eye and have the ability to see far beyond what others can view. Yet, without another eye that has a slightly different perspective on things, you have no depth perception and can only see things in a flat, two-dimensional field. You see, but you have no depth. You can tell yourself otherwise, but you have limited yourself needlessly.

We need one another because we are different, not in spite of our differences. God knew what He was doing and, if we really believe Him and trust Him as we say we do, we’ll start appreciating the differences He intends for us to have. Let others be who God intended them to be; don’t try to make people they way you want them to be. Which is probably more like you.

Identity in Christ. Some of us need to stand out and be different, some of us are terrified to do that; in both cases, if we are doing it because of our needs, we are living in the flesh. One is not worse than the other, although the former is certainly more irritating than the latter.

There are those in the Blogdom who are careful to steer a middle course and not take a position that is even remotely against the tide or likely to draw attention to ourselves. To the extent we do that, we neglect our gifts and deprive others in the Body from benefitting from what God has entrusted to us. Spiritual gifts are community gifts, not personal ones to be used or enjoyed just by ourselves. We all have something to contribute: don’t hide it under a bushel or bury it in a field (Mt 5:15; Mt 25:24 ff.).

This flip side is no less true. More than a few are compelled to always go against the flow, as though the only way they can define themselves is by the contrast they create. They always take the minority view, always see things differently, tend to be negative, and are shrewish with their praise.

Though they appear to be loners and strong, they are actually isolated and weak: they fear that they will not be able to maintain their identity if they join the throng, and thus they must pull away to salvage their sense of individuality. Many times they seem bitter; underneath they are just hurt.

The solution for both of these weaker brothers is the same: an understanding and acceptance of who they are in the Body of Christ. All have something to give, all have something to learn; all are different in some way, all are the same in some way. Like the flowers in a field, we are all unique; like the flowers, however, we are more beautiful and healthier when we are clustered together and sharing our similarities.

God created us for community; in order for community to exist, there must be individuals that make up the community. We are not intended for co-uniformity. The one and the many, the many and the one; diversity in unity, unity in diversity.

We all struggle to find a balance in our lives between individuality and intimacy. Christ Jesus has created that balance for us in His Body. Learn to be a part of the Body most of the time; learn to be apart from the Body at other times. You are always a part of the Body and you never stop being who you are.


2 Cor 1.13