As I have gotten older, I realize how very different we all are and how there really is no such thing as normal. I am happy with myself and realize that my characteristics and personality are what God gave me( well some innate and some derived from my environment growing up) but they are mine, they are me and God wants to use this misfit to help others feel that being different is okay !
Normal is how well someone can appear to look like someone else. Normal is the fad, the accepted things that are in the present, but the word "normal" is such an anomaly. It is inconsistent as the winds of change. I will give you some examples. Tatoos used to have a strong stigma, now they are the new norm and perfectly accepted. Marijuana used to have a strong stigma, now it's ok for some. People used to dress up to go to church or wear their best, now it's come as you are. So normal is fleeting and changing all the time. The other day I walked by a cigar lounge called Stogies. I saw women sitting around smoking cigars and I thought to myself, is this the new normal? LOL, Normal changes day to day.
Who is the first person that comes to mind when you think of an outcast in history?
Jesus Christ
He ate with tax collectors, upset the money changers in the church, and ate and interacted with many unpopular sick, maimed, even demon possessed individuals. All of this was quite unpopular and abnormal. The Pharisees questioned this and felt that it wasn't right, it was abnormal.
Jesus responded with:
"I have not come to call not those who think they are righteous but those who know they are sinners" Matt 9:13
He ultimately was the greatest misfit and outcast of all time.
He did this so that we could understand and see that being different is okay, and to understand the word mercy through his works.
Mercy is giving people what they need and not what they deserve.
Yeah that is what Jesus did and ultimately what he did on the cross.
But let's break it down and think about it today.
Giving people what they need......
That outcast needs a kind word. It is practicing a little empathy, and mindfulness. It is realizing that the person in your life that feels like a thorn in your side, is hurting and needs special care and a little mercy.
We must show mercy to those who have doubts. One must be more interested in people and their salvation than they are at winning an argument. Jude 1:22 -23 "Show mercy to those who have doubts" You cannot love your neighbor as yourself without being merciful.
Mercy is loving the unpopular. Roman's 13:10 says:
"Love fulfills the requirements of God's law."
So God has made you misfit, abnormal, different .... for a reason. He wants you to extend mercy and love to the unloved, to the misfits, to the different so that those who have doubts will have hope.
Simple. Try it.
