Day 2985 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV

To boast in that which the world detests is among the greatest measures of our difference.

It truly is an incredible thing to experience. As we grow down this path which only becomes narrower and more grating to those striding along the wide and normal, we find this interesting new perspective that's entirely foreign to our old understanding. We find that the things we once tried mightily to hide, ignore, deny are the very things in which we glory as we finally learn to see that it's those things which most bring glory to the One who overcame all we've been.

Sadly, so much of society exists within this mindset that has them putting on a show that will never sell out. People all around are living their lives doing all they can to put forth this image of immense strength, ability, worth and accomplishment because they're convinced that our value in this life is based only on the thoughts and opinions of those among whom we walk.

And when you spend that much time worrying that much about what everyone else thinks, knowing that nearly everyone else thinks very much in line with the commonalities of worldly comprehension, then that assumption that perfection and strength and superiority will drive all you do. And as it does, the truth regarding our weaknesses and problems and failures is entirely rejected and refused. Because, as the world so obviously contends, such things are not welcome as they speak only to insufficiency.

That's what we talked about yesterday in regard to the verse preceding this one. It's this sad state of assumption that has folks convinced that perfection is the only way as we live in a place that demands it in order for acceptance and approval and even love to be earned. Yes, this place lives as if love and respect and kindness and compassion and all other good things are all to be earned through the satisfying of whatever requirement anyone may have set up to be met before extending what should be human nature.

Instead, human nature has become very much corrupted and tainted and tarnished by all of these societal misconceptions and missteps. Rather than stop and look at what we're doing, why we're doing it, and most importantly, why it isn't working, much of the world simply races forward entirely unchanged. And so that unstated expectation of perfection remains the standard understanding by which most sadly think they must live.

And that's one of the most beautiful gifts found along this narrowing road following a Savior still not welcome nor understood in this place.

We get to learn to live differently from the world around us. We get to undergo this altering of our outlooks that allows us to no longer waste so much time worrying about the things that everyone else is so consumed with. No longer do we feel this need to hide who we are, because who we are is now in Christ. And considering what He did for us when we were lost and broken and ashamed of everything we were, no other opinion matters anymore.

In our Savior we find all the love, all the mercy, all the kindness and compassion and understanding and purity that we've long sought to try and earn from a world not willing to give them. Christ came to this world to show us there's an easier way to find the hopes of which we've failed to find down here. He came to help us see that all the acceptance and the welcome that we'd long been refused has been freely given in Him all along.

And in that powerful realization we find that all the things we once did, thought, believed, tried to be in order to be enough to gain the love and embrace of the world around us, they just don't register anymore. Because they don't need to. We don't need to earn His love. He gave it to us on a cross we built with our sinful selfishness. We don't need to earn His mercy. He proved entirely merciful unto all when He entered our tomb having died our death that we inflicted upon Him.

We don't need to hide all we've done wrong, all the failures we've found in a life spent living our way, all the mistakes we've made and all the weaknesses we harbor. He washed it all away. And so for us to give them any more thought or consideration or power over our choices and actions simply makes no sense. Through Him, all that old striving to put forth an image worthy of worldly embrace, it's all gone. We are free from living to please people.

And that is a gift that pays dividends every moment of every day.

It's something that I truly wish and honestly pray that everyone is able to experience at some point. This amazing disinterest in what others think, in what others believe, in what others say about you, it's entirely incredible. And what makes it so is that all of us have lived on the other side of that line. We've all got the memories of all the things we'd done to try and appease a world that never once cared. We all have the scars that were left behind by our countless days of trying to squeeze ourselves into the many molds created by the many requirements put forth by a world that never knew anything of true love.

And it's those scars, those memories, those realizations of all we once thought we had to do that continually remind us that we didn't have to do any of it to be welcomed in Christ. In fact, all we ever had to do was stop running from the truth, face it head on and lay it down at His feet. And while that is truly difficult for our ego to even consider, let alone actually agree to undertake, the freedom found in doing so is unlike anything any of us have ever known on the side of life spent trying to please people in order to earn their attention.

Sadly though, I fear many will never experience it. So many people have been beat down so deeply that the fear in which they live forms a kind of cage only unlocked by a miracle. All of the pressure and heavy weight of societal expectation and demand are definitely enough to keep folks from realizing that we needn't please people to be loved. All of this hollow way of superficial thinking wherein we must meet certain requirements before we're found worthy of something is simply one of the biggest lies ever told.

But it's one of the most widely believed as well.

And this fact is evidenced in just how far so many go to put forth that image of perfection and strength. It's why so many have such a deep fear of being hated. It's why so many will agree to forfeit or relinquish their faith, their beliefs, their true opinion and real identity in order to avoid the sting of rejection and persecution. It's why so many refuse to admit their mistakes.

Because to many, they’ve agreed to detest things such as weakness, hatred, hardship and insult as they're seen as failures or inabilities or proof of our rejection from the loving embrace we’ve tried so hard for so long to do everything just right in order to receive. They prove that we’re not enough, that we’re not worthy, that we’re not welcome and that we never will be.

Yes, in this world a single mistake, a single word spoken that someone doesn't like, a single opinion that doesn't match the agreed upon narrative, a single weakness shown in a moment of uncertainty is more than enough to disqualify us from acceptance and inclusion and find us immediately on the receiving end of a kind of vile hatred that simply shouldn't exist in a place that sells itself as entirely loving and all for inclusion.

Thank the Good Lord that He doesn't work like that. He doesn't put forth an image of kindness and compassion only to conceal a virile contempt for His creation. He doesn't claim to love only to lure people into hatred. He doesn't change like the shifting shadows of social expectation. He doesn't say one thing only to plan on another. He is very much truth, and in that we can trust Him to be the very same God who sent the Son who died our death when we were still His enemies.

And if He is that same God who loves so deeply that He sent His only Son to die a death He didn't deserve for those who fully dis, then we can face the rest of this walk knowing that whatever comes, whatever happens, whatever we do or whatever we mess up cannot unravel His love for His children.

All the hardships we'll face do not tell the story. All the mistakes we'll make don't have the authority to erase what's been done. All the hatred we receive and the persecution we endure and the rejection that stings so deeply that it hurts with a kind of hurt that seems unending, all of it cannot change who He is or what He's done or what He's promises. It's all just a part of a story of which we already know the ending.

When Jesus hung upon that cross and uttered those labored final words, it was all truly finished. And in that we have all the reason we need to walk boldly the path laid out before us with as much honesty and courage as possible. Because He already finished all of what we're still to face. And when that stone rolled away, so too did our fear of mankind and the venom that they still love to spew.

Personally, I've grown incredibly fond of this opportunity to be entirely different from what the world wants me to be. I love it. The looks, the jeers, the sneers and snide remarks, it's like candy. The rejection and the hatred and the confusion seen upon faces that do not get from me what they demand, friends, it's all fuel to a fire that's burning inside that refuses to be quenched.

Because we don't burn with a desire to satisfy the wants and wishes of a world who killed our Savior and would happily get us out of the way as well. We burn with a devotion to knowing Him more and helping more know of Him so that they too, should they have the courage to see life from a new perspective, can experience the joy of walking through this land appreciating the opportunities to show just how different we've been made in this new life on the other side of the tomb.

Oh, for we few, we strange and confusing few who are in Christ, we see social contempt and the hassles it hastens our way as merely the evidence of His powerful presence overcoming our insufficiencies. Our weaknesses testify that we’re only still able to continue because of a power not at all of our own. Our embrace of life’s hardships offers us evidence of a resolved trust in a promise we’ve only been able to hope in so far. Our receiving insults and hatred and all other manner of persecution allow us to savor a mere sample of the disgrace Christ bore on our behalf.

Yeah, when we hit our knees in a moment of shame and guilt-ridden misery unlike anything we’ve felt before, we agreed to go all in on this new life received as a gift for surrendering the old. And in turn, we welcome whatever may come as we know it comes only to test us, refine us, strengthen us and purify us so that we may better serve the One who gave such a price to offer us this opportunity at a hope we shouldn’t be able to have.

What we all need to understand is that the world doesn't need to see a bunch of people calling themselves Christians still willing to bend the knee and bow before the powers controlling this place. They don't need a people bearing a Name who won't embrace just how different the One is whose Name they’ve agreed to bear. They don't need us to walk around hiding who we are, covering up what we've done, or living in sheer terror of the truth of ourselves coming to the surface.

The world needs to see a broken person boldly restored. They need to see a lost sheep that's been found. They need a people who have found the undeniable hope in honesty as they finally learned that honesty if the only path to healing. The world needs us to be the broken, the lost, the weak, the hated, the rejected, the refused. Because in our weaknesses they can see Christ's strength. In our failures they see His victories. In our brokenness, well, that's where they meet the Healer.

Friends, do not ever let this world dictate who you are or how you live. We do not live for the things that the world lives for. We do not worry about the things that the world worries about. And we do not fear that which the world fears. We're past all that now. We're living a different life with a different drive and a different purpose and a different path toward a different place.

So be different.

Be the weirdo who enjoys hardship as you now know it's only an opportunity to show someone that you lean on Christ. Be the freak who prays in public and welcomes the ridicule and reprimand that it's sure to bring knowing that someone somewhere may see that boldness and find encouragement to seek Jesus. Be the one who welcomes the hatred, not because it's enjoyable or feels all that great, but because it's our chance to experience a small taste of what Christ chose to endure for us.

We may not naturally wish to choose the path of most resistance, but since He did, we can. We can learn to delight in weakness, in insult, in persecution, in difficulty, and in whatever else this world may think of to throw at us or may use as evidence against us. Because in all those things, our ability is insufficient. So if we face them, embrace them, enjoy them, well then, the world will know clearly that there's more in us than what they see.

Because nobody in their right mind would welcome exclusion or rejection or persecution or hardship or hatred or any of the other entirely undeserved things levied against those living life according to true love and truth. But that's the beauty in it all: We're not in our right minds anymore, at least not what the world thinks is right. And we get to live every day we have left showing the world that we walk not alone but with an authority that renders all manner of worldly power and influence entirely moot.

Learn to welcome that which proves you insignificant. Appreciate all that proves you unworthy. Boldly shine forth that which evidences your inability. For when we are weak is when our faith is strongest, because it's in those disqualifiers that we show ourselves not only welcome in Christ, but unrelentingly and unashamedly and undeniably in Christ.

And so, if our weakness affords us evidence of Christ’s strength, then bring the rain.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold