Bella Vista Church of Christ
LIFELINES
July 17, 2002 Roy Osborne
The Fragile, Fallible Fellowship
There once was a lady who was very fussy about her clothes. One day she found a very small spot that was hardly noticeable at all. However, she began to work to get it out. She applied all kinds of solutions to it and rubbed and scrubbed. But the spot just got bigger and bigger until finally the dress was ruined and had to be thrown away.
Fellowship is like that dress. It's never going to be perfect. There will be spots and blemishes because the fabric of fellowship is woven from the lives and personalities of imperfect people. There are those who use their own standards by which they think they see. Not content to be thankful for the many wonderful things they do have in the fellowship, they concentrate on the things they don't have. This activity can destroy the fellowship for anyone. A little objective thinking will make us see that it isn't worth it.
Much of our spiritual survival and Christian happiness depends upon our fellowship. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you gave all your gold to a tight rope walker who was taking it over Niagara Falls, you wouldn't shake the rope and shout instructions to him. You would hold your breath and pray that nothing happened to him." Instead of shouting about the fallacies of our fellow family members, perhaps we should be holding our breath and praying they don't leave us for we need every one of them. And above all they need to be in the family!
ROY OSBORNE
