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Hey Fam!
Today I am sharing with you a topic that everyone has been vocal about.
I’m sure you’ve already guessed it: my thoughts on how to approach racial reconciliation.
I am not writing about this because it’s a popular thing to talk about. I am not writing this to convince you of my own personal opinions. I am writing about racial reconciliation because I believe that it is crucial for the Church to speak out on this topic.
This post is not going to give you practical steps that will magically fix the problem we, as the Church (and as a culture) are facing. However, this post will present the bits and pieces of ideas that I have gleaned from podcasts, devotionals, and conversations. I have thought about these things, but I know I don’t have it all right. Nevertheless, I am willing to step out and learn about this together. Will you walk with me on this journey? I really hope you will.
Here we go!
Read the following scriptures and thoughtfully consider the differences between these various translations.
Psalm 133:1 The Message Version
How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!
Psalm 133:1 Christian Standard Bible
How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony!
Psalm 133:1 King James Version
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
Psalm 133:1 The Passion Translation
How truly wonderful and delightful to see brothers and sisters living together in sweet unity!
Psalm 133:1 New Living Translation
How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!
We are all different. We have different personalities, giftings, interests, talents, experiences, appearances. These contrasts make it difficult for people to get along and work together.
Picture this: You and a friend are working together to build a birdhouse from scratch. You both have different ideas on how to make that birdhouse. Each of you has different insights, and this makes it hard to agree on how to accomplish the mission. So, how are you going to get the birdhouse made? You need to collaborate and discuss so you can decide on a game plan.
Remember this illustration, I promise I’ll come back to it.
Have you ever heard a song that had such beautiful harmonies that it made you want to cry? I know I have!
Harmony, as defined by dictionary.com is as follows, “the simultaneous combination of tones, especially when blended into chords pleasing to the ear; chordal structure, as distinguished from melody and rhythm”. Such harmonies would not exist if everyone sang the same melody. When everyone sings the same notes, that is called unison. Unison is beautiful and powerful in certain circumstances, but it would get boring if everyone sang the exact same notes throughout a whole entire song. When different notes are mixed correctly, this creates harmony.
Remember the example I just told you? Yeah, the one about making the birdhouse. You and your friend had different ideas about how to build it, so you couldn’t simply start working. In that story, "singing in unison" would be represented by you and your friend having the exact same idea from the very beginning of the project. But you didn’t have the same idea, so you needed to learn how to “sing harmony” if you will. You needed to work together by blending your ideas so that you could make something beautiful together.
This is how I’ve begun to approach racial reconciliation. People of all different backgrounds will not be able to sing in unison about all issues, so together we need to learn to sing harmony. Harmony takes practice, but it is possible.
I hope this idea can help you begin to think about racial reconciliation. Let me know if you have any questions. I would love to have discussion through email or on Instagram. Next time I would like to share some more practical steps of how to continue this work of reconciliation. Love y'all!
Please reach out to us at our email (thejoysblog@gmail.com) or Instagram (thejoysblog). We would love to know how we can best pray for you! Let us know if you learned anything from this post and how God is working in your life.