The FLOWER

THE FLOWER AND THE CENTRE

I was speaking with an Orthodox Father recently when something caught my attention.

We come from very different expressions of Christ.

His traditions are different from mine. His way of worshipping is different.

Yet when we began speaking about Christ, something happened.

Our words met.

Neither of us had to become like the other.

I didn't have to move towards his tradition, and he didn't have to move towards mine.

Our conversation simply flowed because somewhere in the middle of it was the One we both knew.

Christ.

And suddenly I saw a flower.

At the centre was Christ.

Around Him were many different-coloured petals.

Orthodox.

Catholic.

Baptist.

Pentecostal.

And all the many other expressions centred in Christ.

Some petals didn't carry any denominational name at all.

And what joined every petal together was the same centre.

Christ.

And then I saw something else.

Perhaps this is where the Body of Christ has misunderstood unity.

We have been moving sideways instead of flowing towards the centre.

We look across at another petal and see its differences.

Its traditions.

Its doctrines

.Its language.

Its way of worshipping.

And then we try to create unity by bringing that petal closer to ourselves.

But the petals were never meant to move sideways.

They were meant to grow towards the centre.

Christ.

The Orthodox do not need to become Catholic.

The Catholic does not need to become Pentecostal.

The Pentecostal does not need to become Baptist.

And those who carry no denominational label do not need to take one on in order to move towards Christ.

One petal does not need to make another petal look like itself before they can belong to the same flower.

Unity does not require uniformity.

Every petal has another direction available to it:

Towards the centre.

And something extraordinary happens when we move towards Christ.

We move towards each other.

I believe this is what Jesus could see when He prayed:

“That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us…”John 17:21

He didn't pray that we would become one in each other.

He prayed that we would become one in Them.

There is the centre.

And Jesus gave us another picture:

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit…”John 15:5

Different branches.

One Vine.

Different petals.

One Centre.

One Life.

The Body of Christ becomes one when every part stops trying to draw the others towards itself—and we all flow towards Him, the One who is Life.