Baby Don’t Hurt Me!
3.27.2012
Ever feel strange? Ever feel like you stand out like a soar thumb or a black eye?
I know that I do. There is nothing normal to what I do and how I live. We don’t have normal jobs or careers. We don’t have normal schedules. We don’t have normal hobbies. We don’t have normal connections to people.
Sometimes I desire life to have a normal ebb and flow. I want life to be normal. I want there to be regular ways of life for my family, for my kids. Life, however, is just going to be different for us. It always will be, especially for those that are loving God.
I think that for our life to really be abnormal, our love for others has to be otherworldly. Simply put, we have to love in a way that is out of this world! Certainly it is easy for us love those that will love us back, but what about those that will have no inclination to respond to your love in a positive way? What about those that may hurt you in return for your love of them?
It doesn’t feel good and we might be tempted to react back in a harsh manner. W have to remember the call to go deeper and to keep pressing in. We were purchased with a price… the price of one man’s death because of His extravagant love for us. He doesn’t like what we do always, but He continues to love on us in spite of our own decisions and choices. We have to choose life and choose love even when we aren’t always feeling it.
So go ahead, I dare you! I dare myself! Take this challenge, just like I am doing at this week’s camping conference that I am attending, to go love on those that might not love you back. Do it because He loved you first. Do it because you have an incredible calling on your life to change people’s realities and stick out like a soar thumb or eye.
Love you! Now, let’s go do it together!
jt
A lot of teens want to stand out and be “popular”. We see this especially in high schools. Its interesting however that their mindset is “to be popular, I have to do what everybody else is doing”. This does not make one “stand out” in fact it only makes them “blend in”! If you want to stand out you need to go the opposite way of everybody else. If everyone else is paddeling downstream, then you need to paddel upstream. If everyone else is using filthy launguage then you need to remove those words from your vocabulary. If everyone else is watching vampire movies then you need to say, your not interested. What does this all boil down to? The fact that you are different from everybody else. The Bible has a name for this…its called Holliness which literally means (set apart from others). As followers of Christ we don’t not do things just so we can stand out but rather we don’t do those things because God wouldn’t do them, and in return we end up standing out anyway because people around us start to look at us as having something they don’t have. Which is of course Jesus Christ. We as Christians have him living in our hearts. When people without Him see that (even though they may not admit it) they to will want what you have. So then be encouraged to “stand out” only make sure your standing out as a way to show others you belong to God!
A few weeks ago i watched Twilight with a friend. When i came home and told my mom she got mad at me because she doesn’t like it. As a teen i am normally drawn to dark stuff… so for a while i was angry and knew that my friend would think that it was weird that i can’t watch movies like that.. and i kind of said to myself “I just want to be like everyone else…” thanks, i needed to hear this. (: