Hating Normal

 Mini: Not Normal (commercial)
 "Normal isn't great. It isn't fantastic. Normal can never be amazing."

The commercial revealed the desperation of mankind to have a glorious identity and a fulfilling purpose.

I started crying before Les Miserables even started.

Most of us are normal. Though it has been said that "the only normal people you know are the ones you don't know well enough," most of us are not above average. Most of us will never not be average. That's why there are "standardized" tests and procedures. We are normal.

And yet, what is the normalcy in which we [the culture of America] have allowed ourselves to be cooked?
Stupidity.
Laziness.
Discontentedness.
Selfishness.

And our hearts are aching.

We, the people, reach for drugs, clubs, music, sex, world travels, coffee, cars, clothes trying to escape the feeling of being normal, complacent, comfortable, average. We (particularly those Americans between 18-34,) are choking to find a purposeful identity, but it's being shoved in our faces as something that we need to go out and buy, or make, or become, or accomplish for the world.

Christians have this problem too. We don't want to be normal. We feel the guilt of enjoying our middle-class luxuries while those "other people" are dying in poverty and biblical ignorance.

And how do we stop up this pain?

Crying.
Mission trips.
Giving money.
Discussing our shock and horror.

Is this the biblical view?

Is being normal (living a comfortable, middle class American lifestyle,) a sin?
--It depends on who we choose to serve. God or money? Do we hold on to our possessions and position with a tight fist? Are we willing to share and give sacrificially when and as the Lord directs?

Was Jesus normal?
--In many ways, yes. Most Bibline heroes were normal people who stepped up when the Lord called. It was not that they cut their own path to be radical -- they just trusted and obeyed when the Lord directed.

Have we forgotten our identity?
--The world dies in their pursuit of "radical" and "anti-normal" because they do not know for Whom they live. But we who have been born again and are purchased by the blood of Jesus in order to share in His inheritance and to be built up as His living temple, have we neglected our calling?

Paul's letters were written to people living normal lives. His letters promoted the idea of normal lives being lived out.
Don't be busybodies.
Work hard as if you were working to Jesus.
If you were saved as a slave, stay a slave.
If you were saved as a free man, stay a free man.
Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.
Live so people will see you and glorify God.

The world is feeding us lies of distraction and death.

"Normalcy" isn't the problem. Forgetfulness is the problem.

The commercial made me cry because I thought about those acting in the commercial and represented by the commercial. All they want is to know that they are important and have a purpose in living, but they refuse to go to the One who satisfies.

Constantly searching for a release from themselves and a salvation from the lives they try to love, but they won't look to Him who is beyond comprehension and who has created them for His eternal purpose.

They want to be valued and identified, but they will not look to the One in whose image they have been created.

I cried for their blindness, for their hopelessness, for their despair. They grasp and consume in vain, when He is near! The glorious One calls out to them, but they will not listen. 

Louder they sing their woeful tunes, higher they punch their clenched fists, faster they drive their cars, and longer they curse their wasted existence.

May those who have their identity in the Beloved not grow hard to the cries of the world, nor be ensnared in the chains of their idles. <- font="font" pun="pun" purposeful="purposeful">