Am I okay being different?
I have been angry all week which is an unusual emotion for me. I have been extremely busy at work as well, so I have not had time to process my anger.
But this morning with no rush to get to work on time, I’m sitting here with the Holy Spirit asking the question, “Why am I angry?”
The Holy Spirit’s response was surprising and humbling. He said, “You are trying to be who you are not. You want to fit in when I have called you to be different.”
Being “different” is exhausting. Because everyone around you wants you to conform to their point of view. To fit into their box. And when you don’t, you are unfriended and uninvited. It’s easier to conform. To stick with the company line. To believe what you are told, especially in Christian circles.
But I remember my conversation with God about 10 years ago. He said, “I changed your name when you were a child, because I called you to be different. I called you go against the grain.”
Going against the grain offends other. It makes them uncomfortable.
David was a different type of king. He was a King and a worshipper. When his mentor, Saul, tried to dress him for battle, David said, “No, I will do something different.” Saul soon became jealous of David’s success in being different.
David’s exuberant worship style was different and it offended his wife. She wanted him to be dignified like her father. But David’s response was, “I’ll become even more undignified than this!”
So my anger was internal. I was warring against who God called me to be and who the world wants me to be.
Friends, let me give you the same advice the Holy Spirit is giving me this morning:
It’s okay to be different.
You were uniquely created by a creative God.
Embrace your uniqueness!
Don’t compromise your convictions to fit in!
Be willing to be humiliated in your own eyes!
But do it all in love!
This morning, I choose to release the anger and I remind myself once again, “I am accepted in the Beloved and that is all that matters. I am called to be different.”
“But as the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant entered the City of David, Michal, the daughter of Saul, looked down from her window. When she saw King David skipping about and laughing with joy, she was filled with contempt for him.”
1 Chronicles 15:29 NLT
“Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this, even to be humiliated in my own eyes!”
2 Samuel 6:22 NLT