Differences Matter

 

Differences Matter

 

God give me someone who I can think alike with, someone who can see the same as me, someone who has values like me, someone I can agree with, someone I can walk with; have you ever offered a prayer like this? I mean it’s a wonderful prayer. Actually, if you have ever hurt someone because you cannot agree on something, you can understand the need to have someone with the same lens as you. From a young age I have grown up seeing and feeling the trauma of differences in people who are trying to be together. 

So, I learnt to believe it’s nice to have someone who is your other version, someone who is the bone of your bones, the flesh of your flesh, someone who you can see yourself in. I too have trusted God for such. I told God to help me be a version someone would like to have, a version someone can walk with, a version someone can see herself and themselves in. But I recently was just thinking a lot over this kind of request. Early tonight I was like “Father, do I even offer you the right desire?” “Aha I was waiting for that question” He replied. “Why do you desire what you desire?” He asked me and I said “Two cannot walk together, unless they agree. How can somebody agree with me or me agree with them if we’re different? I feel like having some common things help” “Beautiful, but who told you so?” I was asked and I gave an instance of Adam thrived having then found the bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, it showed he found someone with common traits as his. He then spoke something that left me like wow okaaay. Would you like to hear it?

 

“Yeah true I brought Adam someone as Him, but why did He call her woman and not man? I could have created everything alike but why then did I create things different? True two cannot walk together unless they agree, but have you seen the context of the agreement? What you believe is right, your desire is okay but there’s a part to your desire we haven’t talked about. You have been omitting something you know, something you are already aware of, let me remind you of that…”

29 September 2022

Two cannot walk together unless they agree, that remains true. A wise man and a foolish man cannot tarry together. If they do, one thing is certain: one of them will change into like the other; either the wise will become foolish or the foolish will become wise. All this will be so because of the principle of similarity. Walk with the wise if you want to be wise; iron sharpens iron. Light and darkness will never have a relationship, never. All am trying to tell you is that go after what is like you for that’s what will sharpen you. God breeds gods and men breed men. Understand the power of like-to-like; whatever surrounds you, there is power in that vicinity of either you will become like your surrounding or your surrounding will become like you. You cannot walk with Jesus and never be like Him. For 3 times people told Peter that he was one of Jesus, and he denied it. He perhaps didn’t know he had become like Jesus. That’s it, foolishness sharpens one into itself and wisdom sharpens one into itself the same. Surround yourself with your alike.

Now let’s add the missing piece: the sun and the moon are all light emitting elements but we can all agree they behave differently and yet still they marry each other. God isn’t saying get yourself one like you and end of story. He is saying get one like you with a difference. Let me repeat that, do you remember physics says unlike terms attract? Doesn’t that explain why a man is attracted to a woman and vice versa? It’s an error when man is attracted to man or woman to woman. Hear me, there is a reason why man and woman has ‘man’ in their vocabulary. And at the same time, there is a reason why man does not have ‘wo’ in front of it. If all you want is someone like you, then you are enough alone. If all you want is someone you can agree with, well why don’t you just agree with yourself then?

I mean, if all Adam needed was someone like him, God would have brought him another man. But no, instead God suggested to him someone further like him, someone with a difference; a man with a womb, woman. You will all be independent if you are looking for someone like you. But the idea is for you to be dependent on each other and one another. God said, “I will make him a helper [one who balances him--a counterpart who is] suitable and complementary for him.” Look at that.

 

• Counterpart means a person or thing that corresponds to or has the same function as another person or thing in a different place or situation.

• Complementary means combining in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other or another. Another definition is mutually supplying each other's lack …the complementary relationship that binds the two.

 

• Suitable means fit for purpose, sufficient enough.
  

The reason why God is a God of variety and He made us all different is because difference gives us purpose. Difference is exactly why we are here. Am not totally like you because I am your counterpart and complement. Am not here to substitute you.

 

17 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? 18 But now [as things really are], God has placed and arranged the parts in the body, each one of them, just as He willed and saw fit [with the best balance of function]. 19 If they all were a single organ, where would [the rest of] the body be? 

1 Corinthians 12: 17-19

We are different because we gotta balance one another. Different but belonging to one body. There is a reason why both man and woman has ‘man’: it’s to say you gotta possess some similarity. Man not having ‘wo’ is to say though you look alike, you have come with differences. Now, two walking together upon agreement also contextualize agreeing in differences. If you cannot agree in differences, you can hardly agree. Sometimes you agree by disagreeing. It’s questionable if you have someone you always agree with…no, you may want to need someone who can say on this one am not agreeing with you, someone who can constructively pick out some things in you not worthy agreeing with.

My last point would be: we are cool that we are alike, but that we are different makes us even cooler. Remember, our difference is not to make us different but to complement us. That is only possible if we can put our differences in the right container. If we are agreeing, let’s agree both on our strengths and weaknesses, both on the pleasant and awkward. When am weak, you gotta be strong for me. Change your prayer, tell God about the difference too. We are who we are because of that, once we try to eliminate the difference, we are equally eliminating who we are. The question should be, how is this difference supposed to complement me or complement the other person? And if it needs fixing its faults, how are we supposed to do that to make this difference the way God purposed it?

I wish you that you enjoy agreeing in your differences too. Till next time...

I love you all, thank you for reading through.