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I am a total orphan or a I was once,  abandoned, neglected, abused, and still bearing the residual scars of that tale. That is partially due to some unfortunate life circumstances and partially due to personality. I am simply an outlier, on the fringe, set apart, not likely to be on the inner ring of any kind of power structure or people favor.

No need to feel bad about any of that, this is not a pity party, but rather a celebration!Once while lamenting my otherness, my feeling so set apart from the others, someone told me, “Do you know what the very definition of Holy is? Set apart.” Well like, duh! How did I ever kiss that. That whole idea totally changed my perspective. Many of the things I have complained and lamented about, where actually evidence of God having me right where He wanted me to be. Right on schedule.

I do hope I made God chuckle. I imagine Him just sipping His coffee, calmly listening  to me lament for all those years, Lord, I feel so set apart, I have all this enmity with the world, help me to be more like you. He may well have sputtered His coffee out His nose hearing that last one. I, like many Western Christians had read the Bible many times but kind of missed the essence of the whole message. Well, not entirely missed it,  but my heart had confused God’s favor with worldly favor, spiritual growth with people favor.

I have a pet peeve within our faith, a mission if you will, a desire to see that disconnection, that separation between us and God dissipate, to see us restored in right relationship with Jesus. So, so many of us suffer from that same orphan mentality, that religious spirit, that disconnection from why Jesus came and who we are in Him.

John 3:17 says, “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” If we were all actually walking in the truth of those words, the world around us would look a whole lot different than it does.

I really enjoyed a couple of posts that speak to the nature of the struggle, Pastor Randy’s “Take the Combo” and Mel Wild’s “The ultimate meaning of Christmas.”

Enjoy!