The human–nature approach in almost every situation is to let disunity run its course. Distance is easier than devotedness. Harmony is harder than havoc. Congruence takes far more intention and effort than chaos will ever demand. And yet throughout Scripture God makes his expectation known, which is that we strive for unity at all costs.

Throughout the Scriptures, both Old Testament and New Testament alike, God places a high priority on how those of us who say we love him treat others who love him too. You can’t read the Bible without noticing God’s people being called “brothers and sisters” in Christ.

In other places in Scripture, we’re told to be patient with each other and to speak truth to each other and to be compassionate toward each other and to submit to each other in deference, considering others better than ourselves.

We’re to greet each other and show hospitality to each other and be humble toward each other and pray for each other.

We’re to live like we’re one big family, in other words, in all its messy, magnificent bliss

During my growing–up years, my family shared at least two meals a day together at least five days each week. If you’re over age thirty, your experience was likely the same. Until a couple of decades ago, for so many families it was completely normal—expected, even—to eat breakfast together before parents went to work and kids went to school each morning and dinner together once everyone got back home. At the time, I don’t know if I would have said that I loved all those meals. I was a typical boy. Sometimes I would have far preferred throwing a ball or chasing fireflies on the front porch to sitting around the little table in our kitchen every evening with my parents asking me how my day went. But looking back, I see those meals as the gift that they were.

My parents didn’t have much, but they had pride of ownership in that house, which was located just seven miles from Logansport, Louisiana. They’d built it with their own hands—literally—and every inch of that three–bedroom, one–bath home was leveraged to the full. To my recollection, the biggest room of our house was the kitchen, and now I know why. Even if the canned surplus from the previous season’s peas, okra, tomatoes, and corn was down to nothing, my mom was going to harvest whatever vegetables she could scrounge from the two–acre garden she kept on our plot of land, and she was going to cook dinner for her family as frequently as she could. Sometimes my sister or brother or I would help, and as a reward we’d get to lick a bowl . . . corn bread, frosting, whatever. But usually it was just Mom in there working her magic with some meat we’d hunted—venison, duck, quail. We were going to sit down after school and before homework. We were going to eat. We were going to drink vast quantities of iced tea. We were going to ask questions of each other and talk about the petty grievances we’d suffered from classmates or work associates and maybe confess a sin or two. And the five of us were going to do it as a family—Mom and Dad at the ends of the table, us kids filling the seats in between.

Those meals were more than a chance to get nourished physically. They provided spiritual nourishment too. Sitting around that table together, looking into each other’s faces, engaging with one another, working through disagreements, haggling over whose turn it was to tackle the dishes… all those points of contact forged something important in us. They reminded us that we were Boyds. We were family. All for one and one for all—we were in this thing for the long haul.

There’s a verse that comes to mind often, whenever I think back on my upbringing, on the memories my family and I share. “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace,” the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus (Ephesians 4:3). You know what? It does take effort to stay unified. Unity doesn’t happen organically; unity requires a fight. But if there is encouragement to be found in this verse, it’s in its final five words: through the bond of peace.

We’re to establish and maintain a bond of peace with our nuclear family.

We’re to establish and maintain a bond of peace with our neighborly family.

And most relevant to the subject of this booklet, we’re to establish and maintain a bond of peace with our spiritualM family—our brothers and sisters in Christ. This concept cuts right to the heart of what being “life–minded” truly means—resolving to set aside differences for the purpose of prizing unity, both within the church and beyond. We are to share life with each other. We are to take an interest in each other. We are to work through our differences, being led, as always, by grace. We’re to stay the course with each other, held tight by our bond of peace.

I’ve always loved Jesus’s wording in the Sermon on the Mount, his longest and most profound offering during his earthly ministry, when he spoke of who the “blessed” ones are. In Matthew 5:3–10, he says that we will be blessed when we are poor in spirit and when we mourn and when we hunger and thirst for righteousness and when we exhibit mercy and when we are persecuted because of righteousness. Tucked between these assurances, he says this: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” (v. 9).

That word he chose, “peacemakers,” is one we shouldn’t overlook. He didn’t say that peacekeepers would be blessed but rather peacemakers. The difference in those terms is huge. This is active, not passive. It’s not maintaining peace as much as mobilizing it, which is a whole lot harder. You know this if you’ve ever tried to resolve a conflict with someone who was really fired up. Peace making takes effort. It takes commitment. It takes persistence. Which is probably why peace is called a bond.

A bond says, “Because of our common faith in Christ and our shared deposit of the Holy Spirit, I am for you. We may disagree from time to time, but I will not pick a fight. I will not cancel you. I will not disparage you behind your back. I will not give up on you. I will not give up on us.”

I can think of six or seven friendships in my life that could have totally broken apart along the way. Each one suffered a breakdown for a distinct reason, and were I to lay out all the details here, you and I both could survey the damage and say, “Yep, I see why it failed.”

But it didn’t. They didn’t. None of those friendships fractured. The reason? It was the bond of peace. We decided that this spiritual bond was more important than winning the argument that had driven us apart.

To be bound by peace is not to be free from conflict. It is simply to be predetermined that peace, in the end, will prevail.

The bond of peace is a rope that ties us together. It’s a link that connects our lives. It’s a yoke, like the ones used to hook oxen to a plow to keep useful tension in play as the animals work to accomplish their task.

I shouldn’t have to say this, but given our current climate, I will: A bond of peace is not something you ought to prize in an abusive relationship, whether that abuse is physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, spiritual, or psychological. If you question whether you’re in an abusive relationship, seek help before taking even one step suggested in this booklet. If, however, your relationships are not abusive but are instead just aggravating from time to time, read on.

This bond of peace we are told to uphold is in turn what holds us up. When storms come—and they always do—this bond is our anchor. When the world spins out of control—and it does from time to time—this bond is our solid ground. When depression hits or our kid won’t come home or the disease is diagnosed or the sin is found out, this bond—this sacred, spiritual bond—is that flicker of hope we desperately need on that way–too–dark night of the soul. “We can uproot the powers by being peacemakers in our homes, schools, workplaces, cities, and world,” wrote pastor and author Rich Villodas. “In an increasingly divided world, followers of Jesus are to participate in making peace, not in making matters worse.”1 To which I say a hearty amen.

We are to make peace, not make matters worse.

What a perfect starting point. And when we come back to the heart of how God sees us—as one family, unified by faith—we will perfectly position ourselves for becoming people of peace. People bound together by peace. People who have something very real to say to a world in chaos, a world itching to find its way.