I'M NOT NORMAL

   I wrote the following script over thirty years ago, and maybe it is just as appropriate today as it was back then:
      Look into the mirror
         tell me what I see:
      am I me,
         or am I someone else?
     I've been on the high road
        looking for the sea:
     it is there
        and I am here with me.
   I'm not normal and I will admit it.  For if I were normal, I would be like you; and if you believe you are normal, you will be like me.
         And if I am like you, and you like me
         then we have lost our i-den-ti-ty.
   From living in this world, our minds have been conditioned to be like the world.  To dress as others dress, walk as others walk, to do and believe as others do and believe, and even to think as others think. 
   According to the world, we are to be one and all-inclusive.   For if we are different, we are considered as odd balls, or strange, and we simply do not get in and fit in with others around us.  We are not supposed  to be different.  We are not supposed  to think for ourselves, or to make up our minds, or to make our own decisions. 
   If we follow the script that the world has written in our minds, then we should be able to look in the mirror and see somebody else!
   As believers in Christ, however, we are, indeed, expected to be different.
      "Wherefore come out from them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."  (2nd Corinthians 6: 17-18)
      "And be not conformed to this world:  but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."  (Romans 12: 2)
      "Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;"  (2nd Corinthians 10: 5)
      "But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."  (2nd Peter 3: 18)
   It is not always easy to walk with Lord, to learn of Him, and to pattern our lives after Him. 
   It is not always easy to be different than the world, for in so doing we are going against the grain of the world since we are not going in the way the world is going.
   It is not always easy to know that we are considered odd and strange, and to know that others talk about us behind our backs. 
   To us, it is the world  that is now odd and strange.
   The world does not understand us because the world does not understand Christ. 
   The world, in fact, is going the wrong way.
   As a Christian, my identity  is now with Christ and not with the world; and though I am no longer normal in the world, I am very normal with Christ.
      "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God:  therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be:  but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."  (1st John 3: 1-2)