I think if God wasn't in the midst of it, we would have blown ourselves up a long time ago. But God keeps us together and that is one sign that he is with us. One of the greatest temptations for any congregation, especially in a transitional time like this interim period, is for the congregation to disintegrate, to pull apart rather than stick together. If any family as we know is subjected to enough stress, no matter how large or how small, it is not unusual for the family members to have their relationships ruptured or ended. It is like cloth.
Relationships are like cloth.
If you put enough stress on that cloth, it will tear. I learned from a Goodwill truck driver something I never knew. That even the oldest piece of cloth when it is contributed to Goodwill goes to a huge shredding machine and they still make something out of the thread. In today's text, Paul says aim for perfection, mend your ways, restore yourselves to good relational condition. Another place where this word is used in Greek literature describes the setting of a bone and the implication of setting a bone is that it is going to be restored and that is what Paul has in mind today as he ends out with the Corinthians.