Different

If you are in Brazil and you’re going to move, you’ll probably take cupboards, sink and other household objects with you. If you are in US, you’d probably think that’s really strange.

If you are in the US, anytime you see a ‘stop’ sign, you will really stop. And then go. If you are in Brasil, you will get run over if you do so.

If you are in Brasil, you may as well live with your parents until 20, 25, 30 years old… And even at 40 probably no one would think this is the end of the world. In US, maybe the world would be really ending.

If you are in US, war is a daily issue. If you are in Brasil, the closest armed conflict impacting daily life is as near as the 1940s.

Different places. Different cultures. How strange sometimes, but how rich also! It’s wonderful to notice such different ways of life, relationships, facing the situations, composing the beautiful kaleidoscope of human living.

But some things will never be different.

If you are both in US of Brasil, you are an object of God’s love. If you’re either in Brasil or US, your receive the same opportunity and gift of faith. If you are an American or a Brazilian, you can always feel the forgiveness and new life that Christ brings to your hearts. And even if you are an American living in Brasil, or a Brazilian living in the US, or whatever place in the world, you can always have God’s word which, although in a different language, feeds your heart, makes you move from sins, gets you to live in the family of faith and strengthens you for the little ‘wars’ of your daily life.

Here or there, you can always live with the same sureness that God, who is always the same, and completely different from other concepts, is with you, all the way.

In Christ’s love, our differences have an equal place. And all this equality in faith leaves room for living out the enriching differences.




Illustration suggested by
Kim Starr
St. Louis, EUA