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Some years back, someone gave me some very good advice.

The sage counsel was that “if you travel more than a week, it does some ‘damage’ to your closest relationship(s). This requires some extra attention when you get home; to repair what has been torn by the extended separation.”

Over the years, I have found that to be true: there was a tangible sense of disconnect that really did demand that I focus on my wife, Debbie, and children when I got home.

An extra day off, going out for breakfast, or spending the day together usually made things good again. Otherwise, the fatigue of travel and lack of communication makes us vulnerable to misunderstanding, irritation and just plain being out of touch. You find what works for your relationships and diligently plan to do the repair work.

The point is this: unity in a relationship tends to deteriorate without deliberate, focused attention. Little misunderstandings can get magnified out of proportion. Without healthy unity, the “love” qualities of humility, gentleness, patience and forbearance can suffer.

Does that list sound familiar? If you are a student of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, it probably does. Ephesians 4:-2-3 reads like this:

…with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

This is true in a marriage or other relationships. It is also very true in a network of adults in a community, seeking to cooperate to reach teenagers.

What Paul is telling us is that unity is already there, but it takes an investment to preserve it; it does not remain strong without a commitment of time and energy.

This caught my attention recently when I was reading Warren Wiersbe’s book, On Being a Servant of God. In a chapter on the joys (and challenges) of working with people, he wrote:

You and I don’t have to manufacture unity in the church because it’s already there. We’re all one in Christ (Gal. 3:28), and the spiritual oneness of the body is a miracle of God’s grace (Eph. 4:1-6). No, we don’t have to manufacture unity; but we do have an obligation to maintain unity that Jesus died to create.¹

I read that…then read it again. There was something new to me in it. I thought that biblical unity is something we create. Paul’s words brought me up short; I had it wrong. Unity is already there; it just needs to be preserved.

Like the deterioration that occurs if you are gone from your closest relationships too long, unity in the church suffers without invested effort. It can’t be preserved by inaction. So what kind of effort? And what causes it to decay? I believe Ephesians 4:2 has some fresh, practical truth to answer these questions.

Humility and gentleness preserve unity.

The opposites are pride and harshness. In one sense, humility is a verb! Putting others first stimulates their desire to work together. It’s irresistible. Pride alienates, is self-promoting, and pushes people toward the door.

Gentleness counts to ten before it expresses itself, and then does it in a quiet voice with your ear buds left plugged in to the person with whom you are talking. It does not take offense when someone says or does something foolish. Hasty words can injure and make someone not want to be part of your network.

Patience preserves unity.

God has a timetable to accomplish His kingdom purpose in your community. Patience waits on Him – and waits on people to be convinced of His plan (see Habbakuk 2: 2-3). Impatience runs over them like the running of the bulls at Pamplona, leaving blood on the street.

Patience understands that though we may think we know what God wants us to do, we might act prematurely and do damage instead of bear healthy fruit in our ministry. Patience understands that God can refine our vision through others.

I remember with horror hearing about a See You at the Pole where one youth pastor decided “the Lord led him” to preach to the gathered students. He was the only adult leader who thought that was God’s idea for him to hop up on the base of the flag pole. Although his desire for them to know the truth was understandable, he ripped leadership out of the hands of the students and put a damper on their passion to reach their campus.

Forbearance preserves unity.

One translation renders showing forbearance to one another in love as “making allowances for others.” It understands that God made people different and they have different ways of contributing to the end goal. Being rigid quenches the expression of others’ giftedness.

Forbearance also helps us draw a line between those issues that are worth going to the mat over, and those which are not. It’s good to keep in mind this quote by the Lutheran Rupertus Meldenius,² written in 1627: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

As we travel together doing ministry, God wants us to invest time, talent and treasure in preserving unity. According to Jesus’ prayer in John 17:20-26, unity is vital to the world believing the good news!

It’s work, but it’s God’s work…and it’s worth doing.

¹ Warren W. Wiersbe, On Being a Servant of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1993), 49.
² This quote is often attributed to St. Augustine, or sometimes John Wesley. For those who care, classical scholar James J. O’Donnell (provost of Georgetown University and author of two books on Augustine) addressed the issue in an article entitled
“A common quotation from ‘Augustine’?”. Read the article online at http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/augustine/quote.html.