Unity isn't easy.

I was reading the Bible lately and found this:

(1 Cor 12)
14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.

I would like very much sometimes, to justify my grudges, and my problems with the various character flaws of my various friends. I have a habit of instead of working through things with friends, to just push them away until whatever they did to hurt me stops. Or until any awkward, or angry feelings dissolve. Then they can come back. The problem with this is threefold.

1) It never addresses problems head on, and never deals with issues with friends.
2) It prevents many relationships from growing more.
3) If the friend is a fellow Christian, I actually shut out a part of the body of Christ.

Imagine if the eye, out of hurt, or anger, just decided to ignore the foot, and not communicate with him anymore. The foot would soon end up getting stubbed, or stepping on something sharp without the eye to guide him. But both the foot and they eye would feel the pain. In fact the pain would shoot through the whole body.
I have a couple of examples of this. I had a Christian friend who I lost contact with a while ago. During that time, I found out he was involved in a bunch of sinful, and dangerous things. That hurt. To know that maybe if i hadn't lost touch with him, if I had kept him close, he might have made other choices. Many times we don't know what we mean to eachother. Guys especially are notorious for not telling other guys how much they value them. To me, losing touch with this person was a natural conflict of interest, that resulted in us not hanging out anymore. It wasn't a big deal, and to be honest I didn't even miss him that much. But to him, who knows? Was it a slap in the face? Was it rejection from a Brother who was supposed to be there for him? (probably)
Christians need eachother. We need eachother far more than we know. Me losing contact with my old friend may have been like the eye not talking to the foot. Without good, Christian brothers and sisters there for us, we fall. And without the courage to work through things with my friends, to talk to them about crap, or even to correct them, I will injure the body, over and over again.


21The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor.
(1 Cor 12)