E Plurbus Unum, “Out of many, one.”, is recognized as our national motto. It is made up of 13 letters symbolic of the 13 original colonies. Each individual letter has value and provides strength, purpose, and meaning when joined together and placed in proper order. However, when separated they are merely potential without purpose and when out of order they present nothing more than chaos and confusion.
From the original 13 colonies these letters represent has come a nation of 50. Yet it seems the children of that original union have forgotten the lessons of what made our family strong and enabled it to stand against boldly before Goliath. Like David before our country recognized that our strength came from God and from the bonding of separate tribes into one family with a common purpose and a heavenly vision.
However, it seems that today our nation, and the world at large, has gotten hyper focused on the concept and perceived beauty of “Supreme Diversity”. We have elevated diversity above all else through DEI programs in our businesses, government, education, entertainment and more. We elevate the self, encourage the selfish, promote tribalism, and inspire division. Where once we were simply a family called American, today we have divided ourselves by hyphenating the family name and placing the name of another before the one that we are. We not only divide ourselves based on a country we often have never been to, we also divide ourselves on the color of our skin, the sins of our ancestors, individual sexual desires, and self-chosen identities. This modern concept of diversity highlights the individual above all else seeking to be as unique as we can on a spectrum of intersectionality and victimhood learning to hate anyone not us while demanding we not be offended while we offend all others. We gather to protest as a tribe calling for inclusion and open minds while closing our own mind to anyone with a challenging thought and excluding anyone not only not like us, but not like ME.
Now let me be the first to say that the individual has their importance. After all we are each uniquely and wonderfully made in the very image and likeness of God. We are each endowed with individual gifts, talents, and abilities by the Holy Spirit of God. These are given to us to lead us closer into relationship with one another and ultimately into relationship with, knowledge of, and for the glory of the triune God who made us for his purpose alone.
That purpose is one word, relationship. We are designed to participate each in our own way in the singular body of Christ. We are many parts but have only one purpose. We are many colors but display only one picture. When we are aligned in unity, eyes jointly focused, and feet moving in one direction upon that straight and narrow path serving something greater than self we realize the truth of our purpose and find the answer to the question of why. Why was I born? Why am I here? What am I to accomplish?
Just like a soldier in an Army, we join for a myriad of many reasons and often come in seeking personal gain. Yet, we mature into the reality of a singular identity as we learn the lessons of service and sacrifice, not for self but for the man or woman to the left and right. People who we once divided against because of the difference in where we came from or how we looked become closer than a brother as we let go of who we were and allow ourselves to become something new. We mold ourselves into a new family with a new name.
This is what Christ offers us. He calls us to be in the world but not of the world. He calls us to no longer identify ourselves as Jew or Greek, black or white, Mexican, Irish, Italian, English or other. We have died with Christ and are raised anew in him and into his body alone. We are not to cling to the sins of the past but to move forward into newness in him alone. We are not called to bend a knee to an organization or a cause but to him alone. We are not called to march in divisive pride but to humble ourselves before him recognizing that we are all equally failed and fallen creatures in need of a savior unable to save ourselves through any device, division, party, organization, or self-created “truth”.
Against the unity offered by our Creator is the serpent of Eden who has gone from selling us fruit to selling us an identity of our own design that leads ultimately to division and destruction. He has sold us the lie that truth is individual. He has led our eye to focus on that which separates us teaching us to take pride in ourselves and seeking to be served rather than to serve. He has taken our victory by making us victims and giving us a color to blame, a class to hate, or a political party to vilify. He has blinded us to the power and authority he provided to us in the Garden and to the eternal source from whence that authority comes and to whom it eternally returns.
Today let us take a stand where we are to no longer divide ourselves but to surrender ourselves to him. For the truth is that something or someone will always be worshipped and something or someone will always rule. That someone or something should neither be ourselves nor should it be a godless government who denies an authority greater than itself. It should only be the one that truly unites and in whom is found purpose, truth, peace, and fulfillment. In him alone are many made one, E Plurbus Unum.
Christopher Dion of Rusted Knight Ministries resides in Bandera.
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