Weird

My sister informed me yesterday that anybody who showed up at Chik-Fil-A dressed like a cow would receive a free entree.

I guess it's true what they say, "love makes you do crazy things" (and I LOVE their chikin).

Now, I'm not as gutsy as my brother who, if he wasn't out of town, would have worn a body suit with plastic udders and all. But, I'm not so boring that I would miss out on an opportunity to be weird (purposefully, of course).

So, I put on a black shirt and taped on "spots," or ripped pieces of white paper, and drove to Chik-Fil-A.

Honestly, it was a bit embarrassing noticing other drivers giving you strange looks while stopped at traffic lights. But as soon as I was inside the restaurant, I felt right at home. My social discomfort quickly passed, as my outfit was one of the more milder ones. Actually, mine looked rather pathetic. There were some wearing full costumes and others had tails, hats, pinned-on ears plus anything else of the "cow sort."

We didn't judge because we were all there making ourselves look crazy for the same reason: free food. And that, in our minds, was well worth it.

Some people view us Christians as weird. Like, the things we believe, don't believe, do or don't do. But we're all in it for the same reason, and that is the reward of living for Him on this earth and then with Him one day in Heaven.

Having Jesus as our LORD makes us not "normal." Our convictions will get us some odd looks, but that's okay. Sticking out is a good thing. It means that we "do not conform to the patterns of this world" (Romans 12:2). It means we are living for something greater. It means we have hope.

And, in case you haven't noticed, today's "normal" isn't really working.

Craig Groeschel, in his book Weird, puts it like this:

The majority of people--the crowd-- is traveling the wrong path, the one that leads to destruction. They're the normal ones--intent on looking like the rest, spending money like the rest, living like the rest, keeping up with the rest. But their roads lead to a dead end. Only a few people--the weird ones unafraid to exit the normal highway--find the right road. Not many, but a small and brave group of travelers willing to separate from the crowd and embark on a different kind of journey down a less obvious path.

When you think about it at face value, Christianity does sound a little crazy: I mean, we gather on Sundays in a sacred building to worship some supernatural being who we believe spoke the entire universe into existence. We can't physically see Him, sometimes we can hear Him, but we have no doubt that He is there. And this dude named Jesus... He's the son of some greater dude named God but was born from a virgin woman named Mary. A long time ago, Jesus came to earth to die, arose again, and then flew back up into the sky to a place called Heaven that is somewhere beyond the clouds in some place "where milk and honey flow" (Exodus 3:8). With a simple prayer and a little faith, the same spirit that wakes the sun every morning can live in our hearts and work in our lives. Because of that spirit, we see and experience the entire world differently. Because of that spirit, we act differently. Because of that spirit, we believe differently. Because of that spirit, we are different. 

Yeah, I suppose it does sound crazy. But "crazy" is the only explanation for a God who is crazy in love with us. And, like we've established earlier, love makes you do crazy things.

I like what Albert Camus said, "I would rather live my life [weird] as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't, than live my life [normal] as if there isn't and die to find out there is." [my addition to quote]

Going to church is the easy part because there we are not challenged with the consequences of our faith. We are surrounded by like-minded believers who share a heart for God. In other words, we find ourselves mixed in with a bunch of other crazy people just like us. The difficult part is getting to the point in your faith when you actually desire to be different. To connect the dots, you're not just comfortable looking like a cow out in public but you wake up every morning and choose to dress like one. It's about changing your perspective so that the stares or weird looks you'll get for loving God are compliments of your faith rather than denouncements of your infringing upon worldly "norms."

It doesn't take something udderly ridiculous like wearing a cow suit to stand out from the crowd. Simply living like a Christian will turn enough heads.
 
-Rachel