I couldn’t believe what I had done. With barely a thought, I had become one of the ringleaders in a rebellion against our team leader. Was the team leader overbearing? Yes. Were his increasingly prohibitive rules making it difficult for us to reach out to our students? Yes. Did that give me the right to flout those rules and openly defy him? Absolutely not. Instead of presenting a team united in love, I had contributed to a massive rift, which our students could almost certainly sense. How could I be so selfish?

And that’s the thing. What kills unity isn’t disunity. It’s selfishness; it’s insisting on my way, my rights, my interpretation. Unity can only happen when we are willing to lay down our own rights. My belief that I could only be a witness to my students if I did things my way flew in the face of the very thing I was witnessing to: the God who laid down His rights and accepted what others chose for Him, even when that choice was death.

Christ’s final prayer for His disciples—for us—was that we would be one. And He specified that the unity we display would be proof to the world both that He had come from the Father and that the Father loves us. How it must break His heart to see us arguing, falling out with one another, and denigrating brothers and sisters we disagree with—and this behavior for all the world to see.

God doesn’t ask us to be doormats, to agree with wrong-headed attitudes, or to approve of abusive behavior. He does ask us to talk rather than turn our backs, to seek consensus when we disagree, and to lovingly submit to one another even when that submission is hard.

Ultimately, I apologized to that team leader. We talked, and I began to understand what was behind his behavior. Did I come to agree with him? No. Did he loosen his restrictions? No. But by humbling myself and choosing not to insist on doing things my way, I honored my brother, and I honored God.