I heard a great story the other day of a teacher who recently taught a Bible class made up of 4-year-olds. The lesson dealt with one of the widows in the New Testament and the teacher asked the children if they knew what a widow was. When they responded to her question with blank stares, she explained a widow like this: “If a man and a woman are married and the man dies, then the woman would be a widow.” The children seemed to grasp the concept. However, one of the little girls went home and, in the course of explaining what she learned in Bible class, told her mother, “I learned that if Daddy dies, then you’ll be a weirdo!”
The truth is God has called those that would follow after Him to be called “weirdos.” You might prefer disciple, follower, believer, or Christian, but in the world’s eyes we are weird. Weird works. Odd is God-ordained. In 1 Peter 2 we are told:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
He goes on to use words to describe us like strangers, aliens, and exiles. Weird would fit right in to that list. The God that called us out of darkness called us to be radically different from the world. It is our sticking out that defines, not our fitting in.
Rubel Shelly captures this idea well when he writes;
“The one thing for which Christianity has no reasonable response is the inconsistent behavior of those of us who present ourselves as Christians… In this post-modern era, the single most compelling evidence for or against a point of view is the lifestyle credibility of its advocates.”
Our world cares little about our beliefs, but takes great notice of our behavior. May we live in such a way that our lives shine brilliantly through the darkness. Lives that are different set apart, devoted to God, and even a little weird.