Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. Romans 12:4-5

 

It’s one of the largest organisms on earth and its name is Pando.

Pando looks like a forest of trees, but it’s actually one single aspen tree made up of 47,000 trunks and millions of leaves, all connected through one root system. The name Pando comes from the Latin, meaning, “I spread.” Each trunk depends on others.

Pando gives us a great picture of the state of community we’re designed to live in. God made us to live in relationship with Him and in relationship with one another. As one poet put it, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”[1] A paraphrase from the Bible book of Romans explains it like this: “…we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we’re talking about is Christ’s body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be… (Romans 12:4-6a The Message).

Have you got a tribe? Are there people in your life you can depend on, and people who can depend on you? People who will call you out on places of inconsistency or error? Is your life joined with others by mutual prayer, meals and laughter?

God designed you to grow with others.

[1] “No Man Is an Island” – John Donne, web.cs.dal.ca/~johnston/poetry/island.html. Accessed 10 Oct. 2023.