Why don’t you smile for me?

This week’s video was about Therefore I Am and it seemed to have some themes about telling people how to think. It really does seem to feel like there was a push for everyone to be thinking the same way.

To me this brings to mind the song SMILE by GFM here is the intro and first verse:
S-M-I-L-E why don’t you smile for me
S-M-I-L-E now follow me

What makes you think
You know what’s going on in my mind
What gives you the right
To think you can call this my bad side

How can you care if you don’t know the truth
Do you think everyone should be like you
Don’t make me wrong, don’t make me right
If I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna smile

This gives us a look at both perspectives; not wanting to be told how to think and telling others what to think. I think we have all had this thought at some time; How much better would the world be if everyone was like me and thought like me?

For me this quickly falls apart because I know my flaws and can say that a world of just me would never be successful. If you feel differently then stop and ask yourself if you would want a world filled with people like you from five years ago. We are always changing and getting better but that would not be the case if we all thought the same way.

This makes sense when we consider the biblical perspective on this.

1 Corinthians 12:12-26
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

This tells us that we should all be different and those differences glorify God. I have always struggled with this because this was said in a way the human brain can understand but, because this list body parts, I always felt like whatever part I am there seems to be plenty of extra parts to fill in my gap. Even if you break it down farther into internal parts of the body: 206 bones, 78 organs, about 630 muscles, 900 ligaments, and 4000 tendons; we get 5,814. The population of the world is well over 7 Billion.

If we round up the body parts and down the population, we end up with over a million people for each part of the body.

We cannot fall into this thinking. This illustration is simplified so much so that we can understand it. Every individual person has a very distinct reason to be on this planet. This is very hard to wrap the brain around because there are so many people. We have to understand that these differences are immensely important.

Do not let others tell you how to think.

Do not believe that the world would be the same without you.

Do remember that you have a Savior that has defeated death and brings hope to all.