We had a friend in Miami named Bill.  Bill, his wife and grown son were all legally blind.  But Bill, of all people, really had the gift of encouragement.  He and his family would visit many different congregations, most of which were small, in order to encourage the people and worship and fellowship with them.  He believed that the 3 extra bodies would bring more to a small, often times struggling congregation than to a large congregation.  It was truly a ministry that G-d gave to them.

I spoke to Bill a couple of days before he passed away.  He was feeling very badly but didn’t want to burden anyone with it.  It should be an inspiration to us all that someone who had blindness to cope with was still always wanting to encourage the Body.  One of Bill’s favorite sayings was that something “wasn’t worthy of breaking fellowship over.”  He was always looking for areas of unity not strife and division.  He would not compromise on the Gospel and other key theological issues, but he also was not looking to bring strife into the body of believers.

Perhaps we all could work to bring unity instead of bickering about small things and being divisive.