We know unity matters.

It matters in companies, churches, teams, and relationships.

Without unity, everything crumbles.

While we know this, we don’t spend a lot of time on it.

We often assume it will happen and when it does happen, it will stay that way.

But, like a car, unity and alignment is something you have to pay attention to and work on.

Your car through use will go out of alignment.

Any relationship will go out of alignment. Any team will go out of alignment.

Alignment and unity only come through effort.

If you lead anything, one of your jobs is to be on the lookout for misalignment and deal with it as quickly as possible.

Not only does time bring misalignment, but also so does a crisis.

Families see this happen when unemployment hits; one child is the problem child, so all the energy gets pushed to the child who needs it. Without realizing it, parents focus on fixing that one child while the compliant kids get neglected for a season.

This happens in marriage. Both people have a vision for their future, their family, what their marriage will be like. The problem is when they have different visions. They each start working towards their goal, and you’ll hear things like, “we aren’t on the same page anymore. I don’t feel like they’re behind my goals and dreams. I don’t think they even know what’s happening in my life.”

One author said Visions thrive in an environment of unity. They die in an environment of disunity.

How do you know if you have disunity or misalignment at work, church or home? Here are some ways:

• People attempt to control rather than serve. You will start to hear about their needs and desires, no one else does what they do, as much as they do, is as essential as they are. Marriage very quickly becomes a list of what someone has done or not done, and this becomes a weapon.
• They will manipulate people and circumstances to further than own agendas. You will start to hear about them and their friends who have issues. Disunity, criticism, is a virus that quickly grows because we are attracted to negativity.
• They will refuse to resolve things face to face. They will avoid the people they have a problem with. They will opt to talk about you with others instead of to you.
• They will exhibit an unwillingness to believe the best about other people on the team or in the family or the church. We live in a suspicious culture. We’ve been trained that if you don’t look out for yourself, no one will. That people are always taking advantage of you or working the system. Sometimes they are, but many times they aren’t.

One way I’ve learned to move forward it to choose trust.

One of our values as a church is to choose trust. You can choose trust or suspicion in every relationship. You do choose trust or suspicion in every relationship.

One will destroy any relationship, suspicion, or it will grow it, trust.

Right now, you have a relationship where you are choosing suspicion, and you need to choose trust. This is often, what leads us down the road of disunity and misalignment.

In choosing trust, ask: Am I believing the best about others; choosing trust over suspicion and giving the benefit of the doubt?