Teaching Our Kids to Be Different

Have you ever seen something so strange, you thought maybe it’s time for glasses?

Recently my daughter and I were on a bike ride when we came upon a woman and her dog—or what we thought was a dog. It walked like a dog, sniffed the grass like a dog. Followed its owner on a leash like a dog.

But as we rode closer, we realized this dog was actually a pig. A domesticated, pot-bellied pig. In a neighborhood filled with Cocker Spaniels and Golden Doodles, this pet owner chose a pig. For real. And it got me thinking.

Why not? Just because everybody else chooses dogs and cats and guinea pigs—why shouldn’t a person go against the cultural grain and raise an indoor pig? {Okay, I’m sure we can all list a few reasons off the top of our heads, but, work with me here.}

It’s kind of an analogy for the Christian life, really. What the world says is normal is not always what God designed for us as individuals or for His people as a whole. Just think of the “normal” messages we accept in popular TV and radio, or the language we hear at work, or the political lobbyists who would push a very different agenda from God’s truth.

If you think about it, the world embraces some pretty disturbing stuff as normal.

As believers, we should look different from the rest of the world. The Bible 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” (Romans 12:2). It makes sense then that God’s will would look different from everybody else’s “normal.”

Like a pot-bellied pig on a leash, for instance.

Here’s a question for us moms. How have you and I been conforming to what’s “normal” when perhaps God is calling us to be different? What are we allowing our kids to do or say or believe just because everybody else is doing it? What are we consuming ourselves just because that’s what people do in America?

Maybe God wants something different from us. Why? Not just so we stay in line, well-behaved, holy (although that’s certainly part of it). God’s will is always better for us than the world’s plan. And just maybe, our choices will serve to inspire the people around us to be different, too.

We can influence the world for Christ simply by standing apart. Which is, incidentally, the very definition of “holy.”

HOLY: Hebrew “qodesh” which means “apartness, set-apartness, separateness, sacredness”

A pig in the suburbs is one way to set yourself apart. But thankfully, I’m sure God can offer some others. Let’s listen for His nudges—then be bold enough to follow them.

Blessings,
Becky

BeckyKopitzke.com