The Artist Must Die: Christian wierdos...

Oct 20, 2008

Christian wierdos...

(I suppose this is a fair warning to my family and friends that I am getting weirder and that if they are uncomfortable... I totally understand...)

Since I have been a devoted Christian, going to church, growing in the Lord, seeking deeper understanding of Him, I have met a few people who have challenged me in my lifestyle choices...

I remember a family in the Weatherford area that went to our church. The mom had long hair down past her waist and she would wear white dresses and really dance during our praise and worship. She was beautiful and so wise in the Lord. She home schooled her kids and was 'different' in a good way... well, in a WEIRD way... she made me a little uncomfortable... I mean I wanted to be a sold-out Christian, I just didn't want to be that "branch dividian" so to speak...

I met other families. One also home schooled her 6 kids. They were natural food fanatics. No wheat, no regular peanut butter, no white sugar. They ordered their food through a special company and it was not so appetizing -(those artificial flavors, preservatives and colors are there for good reason! ) They adhered to this strict diet like some adhere to the very Word of God... I really liked this family, but I preferred my Peter Pan peanut butter--brown and soft, not gray, salt less, and covered with a thick layer of oil.

Later on, we met a missionary family that was really into Jewish customs and destined to move to Israel. They have four kids and didn't own a television. They studied Hebrew and practiced the Sabbath feasts. They where white kids from Abilene who were trying to prepare for a life among another culture. They talked about potty training without diapers, painfree childbirth, and biblical child training... They were/are precious people... but a bit too weird for me...I didn't want to be THAT different.

How does someone get so weird? Perhaps it begins on one end of the spectrum and ends on the other extreme.

Perhaps, we start out like the hip, world-mimicking, cool Christians who try to make the Gospel more palatable to the culture around us. A few years go by and we are sickened by what we see as a cheapening of the gospel... a weakening of the call to be separate and if we are "lucky" God calls us out of the fog and into a life of clarity. Then before you know it, you might start doing away with things as the Holy Spirit directs... perhaps you lose the cable TV thing, next you stop wearing clothes that look trendy and vain. The next thing that goes is your appetites. Soon your taste for the latest look or style completely goes and you see shopping for this season's "hot new looks" as a total waste of time and thought. You could care less if your car is old, your job title is "only" mom, or if your children are setting fashion trends in pre-school. Success in school sports and popularity no longer enters your mind as you think of your kids and their future because you are aiming beyond high school, college, and even death! You DO NOT want your kids do be "normal kids". You hope and pray that they will be mighty instruments of God. I am constantly being challenged by God to do as He directs instead of what I understand to be the norm

Anyhoo...
Here are some classic scriptures referring to the "weirdness factor".

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Titus 2:14

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light 1 Peter 2:9

Being different, according these scriptures, seems to go with the Christian "job description" We are to be in the world---not OF the world. Jesus was irritating to a lot of people... that is why he was killed... he was considered a threat and a "weirdo". He was not at all a cool, trendy or culturally-relevant politician. He was on the edge, the fringe, and an outcast.

Being uncool is irritating to "cool people"... that is why the jocks have to beat up the nerds... Weirdos threaten the norm by challenging its vanity... (I think of the movie Pretty in Pink, don't you?)

I just hope that I can skip the whole natural peanut butter thing...

3 comments:

Our FamilyOctober 20, 2008 at 2:20 PM
Looks like a jar of poop. :)

Proudly purchasing organic peanut butter from Costco!
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AnonymousOctober 20, 2008 at 5:59 PM
weird is a matter of opinion. If someone is different from "me" he/she is weird. God want us to be concerned about what He thinks...not what people think. I doubt we will ever get to where we don't care. I remember hearing someone say once, "Others can, I cannot".
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Sit-N-ChatOctober 22, 2008 at 9:25 PM
I am not sure I see clearly my failures. Don't know that I have a clue. I do believe what you said about having no ambition that your children are "glorified" (my interpretation) in sports/popularity rings clear. Your desire for them to avoid those temptations just sounds "sound". (I wish I knew then what I know now.) Ya Know? Thankfully, my kids weren't weighed down by that but I think parents can be. I pray God's best for your children. The more His Word saturates our minds, the less capable we are of defining "weird".
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Some Warnings to the Christian Artist

"However, there are dangers in exercising one's artistic creativity. One danger is idolatry. the worship of the work of one's own hands, Another is jealousy of other, perhaps more talented or more successful artists, A third is the prostitution of one's artistic talents in the service of evil causes. Yet another is the falsification of artistic visions received from God, This danger is unavoidable in our sin-perverted world, as any godly writer or artist will instantly admit. Because literature and art can be so influential in society. Christian writers and artists must take very seriously the Scriptural admonition to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling" as God is "working out His good pleasure in us" (Phil. 2:12-133. Christian writers and artists also should bear in mind that their work is in many respects of an instructive or teaching nature, The writer or artist as teacher `~ill be judged more strictly' by God (James 3:1). Lastly. Christian literature and art should "bless our Lord's holy name with all that is within" the artist (Ps. 103:1). Our creativity must glorify our Creator (Rev.t:1 1). To glorify our wonderful Lord we must forsake mere "Christian utility" aimed at mere entertainment. How sad that Franky Schaeffer, son of the late Ltr .Francis Schaeffer and a talented painter and film maker, could rightly accuse today's Christians of "addiction to mediocrity' and shoddiness in craftsmanship in the arts, This cannot glorify our Creator (Rev. 4:11)."

click here to read the whole article

DYING TO SELF

When you are forgotten, or neglected, or purposely set at naught, and you don't sting and hurt with the insult or the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take in all in patient, loving silence.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance; when you stand face-to- face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility-and endure it as Jesus endured.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you are content with any food, any offering, any climate, any society, any raiment, any interruption by the will of God.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendations, when you can truly love to be unknown.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can see your brother prosper and have his needs met and can honestly rejoice with him in spirit and feel no envy, nor question God, while your own needs are far greater and in desperate circumstances.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart.

THAT IS DYING TO SELF

Are you dead yet? In these last days, the Spirit would bring us to the cross.

OTHERS MAY, YOU CANNOT !

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you into a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful, may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it, and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their successes, of their writings, but the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence upon Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for Him and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings or for wasting your time, which other Christians never feel distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign and has a right to do as He pleases with His own. He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you, but if you absolutely sell yourself to be his love slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, and bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He must have the right to tie your tongue, or chain your hand, or close your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now, when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.