individuality

No Courage In Conformity: (Standing For Truth Even When You’re Standing Alone)

hollymarietong Encouragement, Personal Growth , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 0 Comment
No Courage In Conformity: (Standing For Truth Even When You’re Standing Alone)

There isn’t any courage in conformity.  

No courage in conformity.

No courage.

In conformity….

These words have been running through my mind a lot these days.  Maybe “courage” is always on my mind because of what is currently going on in our world today.  So many are so afraid to stand for the “truth” and the “right” that they already know.  I have a confession:  Sometimes I am too.

As it’s been said a million times before, “courage is not the absence of fear, but being afraid, and doing it anyway.”

If one isn’t a little “afraid”…..then where’s the courage in anything we do?  So that is what I am doing today:  Having the courage to post this blog, though I’m slightly afraid of being bashed for it.

There are a lot of things I am and a lot of things I am not, but I know one thing I do want to be, and one thing I do not want to be:  I want to be courageous, and I don’t want to be conformed to the world.

Sometimes my flesh really wants to be conformed to the world though.  It’s much easier, you know?

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

God created me as an original.  I don’t want to die a copy.  He also created you as an original ….so why would you want to die a copy?

There isn’t any bravery in fitting in with the crowd, blending in and looking like all the rest.

As much as we may like to tell ourselves it does, it doesn’t take any courage to make secular decisions, or any courage to follow the pop culture favored way.  I promise you that.

It’s easy and comfortable to live and look like the rest….but how much of a difference will we really make in the world?

Those who follow the crowd usually don’t go much further than the crowd.

God created you to stand out….so why live to blend in?  He has better for us than that.  To say that he doesn’t is to underestimate Him.

Have courage.

Have the courage to pursue your God-given talents rather than simply choosing the major or the pathway all of your friends are.

Have the courage to dress to your heart’s content rather than settling on what is simply trendy, or what the cool people are “wearing.”

Have the courage and the integrity to pay back what you owe others.  By all means, don’t make them ask for it.  It’s just plain awkward.  Do more than what’s expected.

Have the courage to stand up for the ignored, forgotten and the “least of these.”  Have the courage to be “seen” talking to these people and have the courage to actually befriend them.

See, it doesn’t take courage to choose the same career path all your friends are choosing….unless of course it’s your God-given passion.

It doesn’t take courage to simply dress trendy or to copy another person’s style.  What does take courage is dressing according to your roots and your heart’s content…..whether or not it’s in style at the moment.

It doesn’t take courage to ignore your dues or to hope your “debt” to someone just goes away.  What does take courage is admitting what you owe and working until that person is paid back in full…and maybe even a little extra.

It doesn’t take courage to hang out with the “popular in crowd.”  It doesn’t take courage to get plastered drunk along with the 40 other people at the party you’re at, when they’re doing the same exact thing.  What does take courage is being the odd one out and saying, “I’ll take a water.  Who needs a ride home?”

It doesn’t take courage to laugh at dirty jokes, or to join a group of non-believers in a “Christian bashing conversation.”  What does take courage is sharing the gospel, inviting someone to church and bringing Jesus into your conversations.

I love sports just as much anyone, but it doesn’t take courage to cheer loudly for the winning team along with everyone else in the stadium (especially when it’s the home team), but it does take courage to cheer for Jesus, to be baptized and to show your commitment to him publicly.

It doesn’t take courage to wear a team logo.  But it does take courage to boldly wear the cross.  (Well, okay, maybe it takes a LITTLE bit of courage to wear the logo of a team with a bad record…..and a little bit of courage to wear, say, a Michigan shirt in Ohio).  Still, you get my point.  🙂

It doesn’t take courage to use God as a spare tire:  To ask others for prayer and to acknowledge God only when things are going badly.  What does take courage is praising him in the storm and speaking good of him all the time.

It doesn’t take courage to want to “be” another person.  What does take courage is owning “who” you are and trying to make the best of “who” you are.

Plain and simple….it doesn’t take courage to blend in.  It never has and never will.  Whether to stand out or to blend in is perhaps one of the hardest choices all humans must face.  We want to be well-liked.  We want to respected.  We want to be cool.  Ultimately, “conforming” seems so much easier.

Joshua 1:9 says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

This verse pops up for me frequently.  I’ve had to really take in what it’s telling me….even when I don’t feel like it.  Even when I know it’s so much easier to join the inappropriate convo and so much easier to blend in. Notice God COMMANDED us to have “courage.”  Nearly every reputable bible translation I’ve found uses the word “command”….King James included.  He’s not just asking or suggesting we have courage….HE IS COMMANDING we have it.

Have some individuality, friends.  I’ve heard it said that if you want to make a difference in the world….you have to be different.

It’s easy to spot authenticity and courage in the world, because honestly, there’s more counterfeit and cowardice in the world than anything.  When we see authenticity and courage…..we know it.

Lack of courage in choosing your desired career path or even lack of courage in joining an inappropriate conversation alone certainly isn’t going to keep you out of heaven.  No.

However, those who refuse to come to the Lord often refuse to do so because of a lack of courage.  Those who simply say the sinner’s prayer, yet never really explore their relationship with God, because of a lack of courage, greatly limit their present and future. Cowardice is our worst enemy on many, many fronts.  It stops us from being all that we should be, and it ultimately robs us of our callings.

It’s when we have courage to step outside of our comfort zones and dare to be different when we have a real lasting impact.

Ironically enough…..lack of courage is what took me so long and posting this blog. I had a lack of courage in talking about a lack of courage.

But here is is.

What the Lord did for us on the cross was the ultimate act of courage:  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

I know I’ll never be as courageous as Him, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t strive to be more like him.

Clearly, I have a long, long way to go…..but I do know what I desire to be and what I do not desire to be.

How about you?  Do you stand for truth even when you stand alone?

Do you choose the conforming easy way, or the courageous way?

If you’ve been choosing the conformed way, just remember it’s a new day, and God always welcomes a new courageous decision to start again.  🙂

Don’t be an ant at a time like this: The cost of disobedience & following the crowd

hollymarietong Encouragement, Personal Growth , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Don’t be an ant at a time like this: The cost of disobedience & following the crowd

Sometimes the greatest revelations come through the simplest…..and even the most unpleasant of analogies.  That is precisely what happened as I was recently thinking about the cost of disobedience and “following the crowd.”

This time, I felt God nudge me about ants.  Yes, ants.  The gross, sneaky, little obnoxious things that like to invade our food, crawl all over our possessions and get into everything.  This is definitely a “first” for me.

Why ants?  Well, they’ve been everywhere in my life lately, and they’ve been making me want to bug out.  (No pun intended).  But I can’t bug out, I must face them and defeat them.  Therefore, I apparently should learn a lesson or two from them while I’m at it.

About once a year, these creepy little insects visit me in my home.  I’ve tried to seal up different areas in the kitchen, yet around this time of year, they find their way in, no matter how clean the kitchen is.  It doesn’t matter if there are dishes in the sink or not….the unwelcome visitors insist on invading my personal space.  Before I know it, I have to buy some kind of ant killer.

A month ago, they kept coming in spurts into my kitchen.  I wouldn’t have any for a bit, and then, before I knew it……they were back.

Finally, I was feeling beyond fed up.  I did some research and ran to Wal-Mart.  None of the previous ant buttons worked, so I knew it was time to get serious and find a product that actually works.  I bought an ant killer called Terro upon seeing that this product consistently receives five star reviews.  After putting out the Terro gel traps, it was soon obvious that Terro is truly the best ant killer on planet earth.

It wasn’t long before the ants began congregating and flocking together like crazy…..ultimately flocking to their death.  Though I put out multiple traps, one trap in particular was much, much more popular than the others. I woke up the next morning to realize Terro had mostly killed a whole entire ant colony.  Though it was a disgusting experience, I stood back pleased with myself.  I also figured out what area in my kitchen needs sealed up to prevent them from re-entering again (I think at least).

Then, later that morning, I arrived at work……and…lo and behold…………I spotted a couple ants on my desk.  Just a weird coincidence, right?  Nope!

Before I knew it, I heard co-workers around me talking, saying they have a ton of them in their cubicles.

NOOOOOOOO!!  I thought I was free!!  

The week prior, someone had came to me and asked if I was having a problem with ants in my cube.  I told them I wasn’t…not realizing it was another co-worker nearby.  Then, just a week later…my cube neighbors were grabbing the clorox, sanitizing their cubes and suffering from the heebie jeebies just as I had been.  I was just kind of sitting in my cube in disbelief that I was actually dealing with these creepy insects yet again.  But then…I decided to write this blog, because it was a slow morning, and I was having weird ant revelations.  Or maybe they’re God revelations.

As I was sitting there that morning, I heard something in my spirit that went like this:  “Just as it is with the ants…..flocking with the crowd always leads to death.”

WOW!…

This may not sound all that profound to you, but it does to me.  An ant on its own isn’t necessarily “bright,” but it feels the need to be part of a colony.  Together that colony is a nuisance to people.  Together that colony destroys food.  That colony also bites if their mood strikes them right. However, it is “that colony” that often leads them to their death.

As I wondered what God was really trying to say, I thought about those gel traps I observed the night before:  Those ants just couldn’t help but follow one another……to their death.  They had no individuality….no rebellion….no anything…..except a desire to follow the crowd.  Though it may not have seemed that way at first, their need to follow the crowd ultimately cost them their lives in the end.  Pretty soon, there wasn’t any “lone ants” left.  They were so attracted to those gel traps they just couldn’t help themselves.  They were led by chemicals and smells, just as we are often led by the flesh.  Brainlessly, they all headed straight for what they thought was the land of milk and honey…..but unfortunately for them, it was a toxic land.  They were on their final destination, and they didn’t even know it.  They were fooled….just like we sometimes are when the devil appears as an angel of light.

The very thing they were drawn to was the very thing that was going to kill them.  How often does this happen to us?  Obviously, we don’t always “die” in a lifeless kind of sense, but we kill our inner workings.

No one actually gives orders in an ant colony, but they all decide what to do next….which is pretty much the same thing as their siblings. Though there is a “queen,” they’re all very much alike in the end – like a carbon copy of one another.  Ants communicate by chemicals, and that is how they mostly perceive.  They use their antennae to smell.  They don’t see well, so this is basically how they face the world and make their decisions.  Though no one mortal human specifically gives us orders….how often do we simply follow a mortal human as if they know the best way?

Can I be honest?  Today’s pop culture scene has a lot of America looking like a bunch of ants.  I often have to remind myself not to join the flock.  I often have to remind myself that in the end it leads to spiritual death.  But everywhere we look, people are traveling in droves down the path of destruction…. without even realizing it.

Not many seem to question if something is wrong with being part of the “majority.”  Not many seem to realize that what is popular in the eyes of the world….often isn’t right in the word.  Therefore, many are afraid to be different….afraid to break apart from the flock….and afraid to take the uncommon route.  The result is disobedience, and the result of disobedience is the death of the dreams, the death of callings, the death of hopes, and worst of all?  Spiritual death.

As Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.”

You see….satan lays a new gel trap for all of us every day.  They’re all around us…and they’re designed to entice us.  The devil wants us to be led by our flesh…..God wants us to be led by the spirit.

Still, satan knows so many of us desire to be part of the flock.  He knows so many will have the desire to go the way that seems right.  But in the end, the devil wins when we follow his lead…..and we lose.  He knows our weaknesses, and he knows what will lure us in.  He has all sorts of strategical “gel” for humans.

The good news is….if we’re staying in the word and using our discernment, we will recognize the traps of “death” and know to avoid them. 

It’s been said that those who follow the crowd usually don’t go any further than the crowd.  Think about it folks:  God created you for more.  He created you to love, to be a light, to lead, to learn, to make a positive difference and to live for Him.  Don’t just become part of a colony or the “in crowd.”  It may seem right today, but God sees the bigger picture.

He needs us now more than ever – to rise up and to stand firm for him.  In the end, he will reward us for doing so.  Avoiding the traps is what will one day bring us to the land of milk and honey….even if it doesn’t look like it today.  Walking into the trap will rob us of the land of milk and honey….it will rob us of our God-given talents and all the amazing plans he has for us……even if it doesn’t look like it today.

Romans 12:2 says,  “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

God is always looking for “unique, courageous, non-conforming, available, individuals” to accomplish his good and perfect will.

Do we want to be purposeful, or do we want to be a “can’t think for myself/want to simply fit in,” ant?  It’s up to us….God has given us free will…..but friends…..I really do hope you decide against being an ant at a time like this.

Now….I’d get back to ant killing, but I don’t see any, anywhere……