But I Still Feel Like an Anomaly, and It Hurts

(You might want to read “Ann O’Malley, Anomaly” and “Anomaly No More” before reading this post.)

The separation continues

    So I’m a Christian. So I belong to God, to His family. I fit in. I’m part of His crowd. Forever. Nothing can change that. So why do I still feel like an anomaly when I’m with other Christians? Wasn’t that whole anomaly thing supposed to end when I came to Christ?

    The bad news is that it doesn’t end. We’re still fallen human beings, even when we’re saved. We’ll experience separation from others, even other believers, until we’re with Jesus.

The healing begins

    The good news is twofold. First, after 45 years as a believer involved in both Christian and secular groups, I’ve found greater acceptance, greater fellowship, greater love among Christians than in any other group. Where the Holy Spirit dwells, this is the natural outcome. I know there are some people who’ve had very negative experiences within the church, who’ve been rejected by those who should support them, who’ve felt hated by those who should love them. That’s one of the issues that I’m trying to address in this blog. The church could and should do a better job of expressing God’s love for those who are hurting. But overall, in general, for the most part, I’ve seen greater acceptance and love, greater fruit of the Spirit within the Christian family than in any other group.

    That’s not to say that every individual Christian is more Christlike in this area than every individual nonbeliever. There are some very kind and generous and loving people who do not (yet) believe in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior. There are some Christians who fail to demonstrate God’s character in their treatment of others. My observation pertains only to groups in general, and I know it’s limited by my limited experience. But I find it encouraging to be able to say that I see a definite difference, as there should be, between believers as a group and the world as a whole.

    I once knew a Christian boy I’ll call Phil who was in junior high school. He had a big heart for others, and was disturbed by the lack of love that he saw among his Christian friends. They weren’t as accepting as they should be of those who were different from them. Didn’t Jesus say to love both your neighbor (Matthew 19:19) and your enemy (Matthew 5:44)? Phil didn’t see much of that going on.

    He was a friendly kind of guy and quickly got to know other boys in each of his classes. Christians, kids of other faiths or no faith, athletes, nerds, the well-behaved, the ones who were generally in trouble or who struggled to learn new material. He could get along with almost anyone and appreciate them just the way they were.

    One of his new friends was on the radical side. Spiked hair, attitude. But very smart. Phil got the impression that Spike and his crowd were more accepting of others than Phil’s Christian acquaintances were. They had some interesting conversations. Phil wasn’t buying into the radical stuff, but he had a certain respect for this group.

    One time, Spike invited Phil to hang out at the mall with him and his buddies on a Saturday evening. In spite of their apprehensions, Phil’s parents agreed to drop him off and pick him up. As far as they could tell, everything went fine. No emergency phone calls. No police officers knocking on their door.

    When they went back to the mall and Phil got in the car, he had a whole new perspective on the radical crowd. They weren’t as nonjudgmental as he’d thought. He’d had the gall to turn down the cigarette that they offered him. They taunted him for it and made fun of all the other mall-goers. After less than an hour of hanging out with them, Phil had run into a different set of friends and decided to spend the rest of the evening with those boys instead.

    There are plenty of groups that talk the talk of acceptance, tolerance, peaceful co-existence. But once you get to know them, once you hang out with them at the mall, you almost always find that they have their own ideas about what’s acceptable and what will be tolerated. When you voice your disagreement with their standards, when you politely turn down a cigarette that you’re supposed to accept, the group as a whole is no longer so accepting and tolerant. It’s normal.  It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome this natural tendency of fallen humanity.

Making a difference

    Which leads to the second half of the good news: I can be part of the solution. I have the Holy Spirit within me. Therefore I can be growing in the fruit of that Spirit: “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). I can treat others as I want to be treated (Luke 6:31), with patience and kindness and gentleness. I can help reduce that sense of anomaly, that feeling of being weird, of not fitting in, of not being a part of the crowd, whether I’m at home or at work or at the mall, whether I’m with a fellow believer or an atheist or someone of another faith. I can make a difference.