On the last night before the cross, with everything he could have asked for hanging in the balance, Jesus prayed for one thing above the rest for the people who would follow him: "that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you" (John 17:21).
Not comfort. Not success. Unity. Of all the things he could have asked, that's what filled his final prayer.
It Begins With a Surrendered Will
How did Jesus himself stay one with the Father? He said it plainly: "I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me" (John 6:38). He didn't get there by negotiating shared interests. He got there by surrendering his own will completely.
That's the pattern for us too. Unity in a church doesn't start with a strategic plan or a slick mission statement. It starts with each person laying down their own agenda at the feet of Christ. A room full of people each doing their own thing, however sincerely, never adds up to the oneness Jesus prayed for.
We Know Jesus Because of Them
Here's something I hadn't really considered. We know Jesus today because his first disciples were willing to be that kind of surrendered body. Their writing, their witness, and their willingness to set aside personal ambition for a shared mission are the reason the gospel reached us at all, two thousand years and an ocean away.
Where My Own Will Is Running Things
We usually think of "the power of one" as a lone hero standing up. This flips it. The power of one is what happens when many people each give up their own way and become, in the ways that matter, a single body. It's less glamorous, but it's what Jesus actually asked the Father for.
So I find myself asking where my own will is quietly running its own agenda, separate from the people I belong to. Unity isn't a group project we all manage together. It's what happens naturally when enough of us stop insisting on our own way.