Dear Bruce, …Help me find “normal”.

8. August 2008 by BruceSmith.

Dear Bruce,

I have been a believer now for about three years.  Before I came to faith I was, I guess, the typical modern person living from experience to experience, day to day, pleasure to pleasure, moment to moment.  Before I was a Christian I would just hang with my friends, go to a bar, experiment with various chemicals, “enjoy” sex, and just kinda live with a “If its what I want at the moment…I do it” sort of mindset.  Over the last three years, as a believer, I have found that my guidelines for living have become “abnormal” in the eyes of all my previous friends.  People tend to view me now as abnormal.  I don’t like the way that feels, but I do want to live like God desire me to live.  How do I make sense of this and process this mental/spiritual ordeal in a prudent way?

Is the Christian life about being abnormal?  Do I always have to look like the sore thumb in every “fun” situation?  What am I missing here?

Thanks for your insight,

Katie

Katie,

I love your honesty, transparency, and willingness to ask what many people deal with but never really voice.  Essentially, your question gets to the core of the faith walk, its motivation, its essence, and its aim.  Here is the good news: believers are the most “normal” people on earth!  For most of us, we tend to lose sight of the biblical call to “normal” in light of the scriptures which encourage us as “aliens” in this world.  We tend to see that the believer is called to be “different” from the rest of the world, but fail to realize that this difference takes us back to where God’s intentions began for humanity.

Let me explain.

What most of the world views as normal actually is severely abnormal, marred, broken.  In a recent Newsweek article I noticed a striking example of this reality.  Apparently Newsweek regularly runs a piece that is sort of a meter or gauge of cultural realities.  The piece actually is nothing more than a scale, drawn out like a time-line, with one side showing a moderate rating and on the far end an excessive rating.  In this particular issue the scale was evaluating the degree of moral failure in three particular current events.  On the moderate end, which was merely listed as morally “tacky” was Alex Rodriguez’s “serial adultery” which has been brought out in the Yankee star’s divorce filing.  On the “mid-level” scale the indicator pointed to Martin Bashir’s (a news co-anchor with one of the major network news shows) recent “caveman”-like, sexually laced comments about a certain popular female.  His comments were merely a joke it seems, but deemed more offensive than serial adultery.  On the severe end of moral failure, listed as a gross breech of morality and decency, and thought to be unthinkable, was a politically driven song by Ludacris which promotes Obama’s campaign.  The Newsweek article, this moral scale, suggests that the most offensive form of immorality in our culture, at this moment in our national development, is anything which would bring any hint of damage to a certain politician’s campaign.  In the writer’s opinion, apparently, despite the fact that Ludacris was actually promoting Obama, any hinted association between the rapper and Mr. Obama could only serve to damage rather than aid Obama’s campaign.  Such an act, unwarranted promotional evil, even though it’s intention was to aid the potential President, was viewed as the “wort kind of evil” by the magazine!  This is absolutely heinous and unforgivable in the eyes of the writer.

What I am getting at here is simply this; how the world views morality is not how God views morality.  We are called to see what God views as normal as normal.  In a world that places more value on successful political campaigns than it does marital fidelity, believers must have a much clearer view of how people are to live.  No party or political platform was ever intended to, nor can it, define ultimate reality.  Likewise, the general opinion of a culture is never to be our benchmark for living.  Though the average moral scale may appeal to the majority to be the best way to go, we must recognize that in reality such a guideline is abnormal.

Getting back to normal, something I have written at length about, is all about understanding why we were created and how we find the greatest sense of meaning, purpose, and peace in life.  That kind of life comes from an understanding of who God made us to be and how He intends for us to function.  While your friends may view sexual “freedom” and partying as the way to “happiness”, you must recognize that such an approach leads you far away from a life worth living as defined by God.  The proof is in the puddin, as they say.  In a culture where morals have been in decline for decades, while affluence and entertainment access have been sharply on the rise, we have seen an explosion in rates of depression, addictions, psychological illness, and general human failure.  More people are in counseling and rehab than ever, more relational distress exists, and personal isolation has shot up dramatically by all accounts.  We are not getting happier by experiencing more pleasure it would appear.  How  many high profile celebs must we see destroying their lives before we get the hint.  Life lived for pleasure does not end in pleasure.  For many, such a life, sadly, just ends.  For too many others such an approach to life actually leads to psychological, physical, relational, and moral imprisonment.

Lastly, if you want to see a vivid picture of “normal” with pristine clarity, and the kind of peace, love, and purpose it brings, simply do a study on the life of Christ.  He has been called, simply, Ecce Homo “The Man”.  Finding normal is found in beholding The Man.  He is the definitive look at what it means to be “normal” in God’s eyes.  Normal is what God intended, let’s not forget that.  Anything shy of God’s desire for us is deviant, off the mark, other than normal.  What we were intended to be is the norm from God’s perspective.  That kind of normal leads us to the kind of life we all crave.  Because we are all prone to the abnormal life of  sin quests of all sorts, we wind up less than what we could be.  That’s why Jesus came.  He came to offer a bridge back to normal, the original intention, communion with God, and proper community with others.  If you really want to find normal, study Him, apply the Ten Commandments, and embrace the Sermon on the Mount.  With regard to the latter, has there ever been a more counter-cultural, “abnormal” approach to living on this planet?  Yet, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ great moral presentation, remains the benchmark for true living.

I can attest personally, as one who to some degree has lived an “abnormal” life as defined by society (I have had sex with one partner, my wife, and that only while married, in my lifetime, have never tried a drug of any sort, and desperately attempt to submit my life, thought, and actions to God daily) that the biblical quest for normal is the most fulfilling approach to life.  I am far from perfect, and fail regularly, but my deepest drive is to be all God has called me to be.  I am a single father of three, love parenting, and thoroughly enjoy my kids more than all other pursuits or activities.  I refuse to embrace any romantic relationship not in keeping with God’s agenda for me, and some time ago I walked away from a job which provided a very large income for me in order to write, speak, and teach others about finding God in a world of distractions.  I have been told regularly, “This is not normal”.  I share these things not to promote any high view of myself, and certainly do not think I have it all together, rather, I offer these realities simply to let you know, as a guy who could be viewed as completely “abnormal” by the cultural standard of measurement, that this kind of life is more thrilling, enjoyable, and purpose-filled than I could ever explain fully.  I am convinced that the pursuit of God is the quest for normal.  Anything else makes me less whole.  I have seen that it is the good life and it is worth pursuing.

Normal is found in Him.  Embrace, enjoy, and live in that reality and watch as your life becomes more than you could ever imagine.  Dare to be normal in His eyes!

Pursuing true normal,

Bruce Smith

optimuslife.org

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