Anomaly No More

(You might want to check out my first post before reading this one.)

Fitting in

    It hurts to be an anomaly. There’s so much pressure today to keep up with what’s trending. Forget what’s important or what’s meaningful. What’s trending is more crucial to our lives, more significant, more urgent. The unspoken message: if you’re not up on the latest trend, you’re an anomaly. You’re on the outside. You don’t fit in. And that’s bad.

    But isn’t every one of us an anomaly to some degree? Won’t I always feel different in one way or another from every single person around me, even when I follow all the latest trends? How do I cope with this?

The bad news

    When I look to God’s Word I find bad news. In Genesis chapter 3 Adam and Eve defied an express command from God and ate the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Several things happened as a result, but they all relate to God’s statement, “When you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). Sometimes the Bible uses the word “die” to symbolize separation. Adam and Eve didn’t physically die the moment they ate the fruit. But they instantly experienced separation.

    They “made coverings for themselves” (3:7). Separation from each other. “They hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden” (3:8). Separation from God. The man blamed the woman (3:12). Separation from each other. The woman blamed the serpent (3:13). Separation from personal responsibility, from self. They were banished from the garden of Eden (3:23). Separation from paradise.

    Sadly, the Fall resulted in humans becoming separated from all that had been most precious to them, including each other. Adam became an anomaly to Eve. Eve became an anomaly to Adam. The pain began. And it will continue until this world ends. We will always feel like anomalies in regard to our human relationships.

The good news

    But I also find good news in God’s Word. In spite of being separated from the presence of God, in spite of the inability of sinful man to have a relationship with God, no one is separated from the love of God, the love that provides a way back to fellowship with Him. “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. . . . We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:9-10, 19). “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

    While we were in such a state that there was no way we could live up to God’s righteous standards, Christ died for us. This is so freeing. God loves you just the way you are. You can come to Him without having to clean up your act first. You can come to Him with all your doubts and fears and anger and bitterness. Jesus loves you so much that He offers His own blood to cover your sin even while you’re enjoying those sins, even when you’re shaking your fist in His face, even before you begin to regret the brokenness and separation that sin brings in its wake. Even when you’re His enemy. The ultimate demonstration of how to love your enemies (Matthew 5:44).

    God’s desire is that no one will feel anomalous or left out in relation to Him. “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4). “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). He wants everyone to be saved. He wants everyone to belong.

    When you come to Him, when you recognize your inability to be worthy to stand before a perfect and righteous God, when you accept His free gift of forgiveness through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, you can leave your sense of anomaly behind. You now belong to Him and are a part of His family, as fully acceptable to Him as the most saintly people in the Bible.