Psalm 133:1
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
Our bodies, our souls, our psyches were meant to be at peace. We all know the illness of the physical body when some element of our health is out of order, when some process is not in harmony with all the others. It is even more wrenching when that happens in the body or in the spirit.
For example, real illness can come from the guilt that accompanies going against our beliefs, against the integrity of our moral commitments. We have all seen examples where there has been a lack of unity in marriage, or in a family, or in an athletic team, or in the community at large.
Paul taught that a body—whether that body be of an individual person or a church or a nation—cannot war against itself, cannot be antagonistic one part to another, cannot survive with one element saying that it has no need of the other.190 Life is happier at every level if we are unified and harmonious, always allowing for differences of opinion and individual personalities, but never letting legitimate distinctions and uniqueness bring pain or strife so serious that it compromises the health of the person.
God expects us to be unified as His children and as His Church. He expects us to “dwell together in unity.”
Indeed one of the great characteristics of latter-day Zion is that the people will be of “one heart and one mind and dwell [together] in righteousness.” (Moses 7:18) In His magnificent Intercessory Prayer, Christ pled for that unity in the lives of His disciples. (John 17) Later the New Testament Saints did believe and “were of one heart and one soul.” (Acts 4:32)
We are, as members of the Church, the body of Christ. He expects unity of purpose and sublimation of selfishness when the health of the body is at stake. This helps the entire enterprise—as well as the individuals in it—to fend off difficult times or triumph over them when they come. Truly if we are not one in the family of God, we are not His. (Doctrine and covenants 38:27) ~Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012), 143-44
