A Sea of Different Faces

This post was done in Hong Kong but would not post while I was there)

Have you ever had the feeling that you just stand out from everyone else - you are just different?
You just can't fit in no matter how hard you try? I have had this experience two times in my life, both on trips to lead music. When you go to another country it becomes almost painfully apparent that you are not like others around you. You look different, you talk different, it is difficult to communicate and the culture is something that is hard to understand. People look at you funny and make you wonder what they are really thinking about you. Not a very comfortable feeling.

It makes me wonder if jsus had that same feeling when he came to earth. He was so "not like" the people that surrounded him. He was perfection and he stepped in to a wholly un-perfect world. And while he looked like us and talked like us, the whole experience had to be foreign to him, uncomfortable even. Yet he was obedient to his calling to come. To be in the world and not of the world.

As uncomfortable and hard as it may be, we are called to do the same thing in our world. To be in it and not of it. To "look" different than the ones who surround us. To stand out. To speak a different language. To know the culture but not be so familiar with it that it consumes us. To be like him.

So today, ponder this... How different do you look to those you come in contact with? Do they even see a difference the way you are from the way they are? Do you "blend" to much? My hope for you is that you are uncomfortably different from those around you and that you learn to embrace that and live it well.