Aliens

Sometimes I feel like an alien living in a foreign land. 

I don't fit in with those around me, so I lower my convictions and I compromise. I do things in ways I know God has shown me they not be done.

So I become a compromised version of myself living in murk and that feels even more horrible. 

Feeling alien doesn't feel as noble as it did when I was younger. It's like there's more at stake now, there's more to lose. 

Being an alien now means cutting off the wrong guys and being single for longer. 

Being an alien now means feeling uneasy around worldly obsessed people who are caught up in vanity. 

Being an aliens now means distancing myself from those who try to overtly or inadvertently help me compromise my convictions. 

Living as an alien means choosing qaulity over quantity. And when qaulity is a rarity, that means lonliness. 

The hardest is that all of this alien-ness is experienced within christian community. 

I praise God for His strength and Holy Spirit which leads me into truth and triumph. 

I praise God for beautiful housemates, mature colleagues, a light-hearted, level headed sister and a godly mother. 

But nevertheless, here I am, laying awake at 11pm, musing over the dissonance I feel between who I am and who others are, and trying to reconcile outcast feelings. 

As I fought back tears, I remembered this I read yesterday. I need to blog it to remember it. 

1 Peter 2.2-12

"Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and, “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."

I pray This would move from my head to my heart and sanctify me. 

I pray that God would glorify himself to me and to others- that we would all live in His light and purity 

I pray He would transform me AND my community, that others may see our good deeds and praise our Father in heavens 

I pray I don't fall Into the temptation to become just another ineffective, salt less gentile. 

And I do pray for sleep! 

Amen.