A Peculiar People
My wife and I love to people watch. Often when on vacation
we will find a good vantage point; a park bench or a window seat in a café and
just sit and watch the people walk by. With the diversity of the human race you
never know who or what will come strolling by.
We were once sitting in small tavern in Detroit waiting for
a Blues Concert to start when movement on the street caught my attention. As I
looked out the window a middle aged lady came into view. The top she was
wearing was the upper part of a Detroit City Police Uniform, un-tucked and many
sizes too big, the tails waving in the wind. Behind her she was dragging a
wooden kitchen chair and to round out her attire she wore about her neck a
life preserver of the type that might have been found on the Titanic.
The most striking part of the spectacle was that she
strolled on down the boulevard like this was normal. She wasn’t per say “strutting
her stuff”, she was just out for an afternoon stroll, ready to sit and relax on
her convenient kitchen chair in a moment’s notice and in the next moment ready to
save a drowning soul with her trusty life ring. I am sure that most of us would
have described her as unique, odd or maybe even peculiar.
I honestly believe that is the type of walk God would have
us use in this world. We should be strolling through life with our love for
Christ draped around our necks, while our love for others is so over flowing
that the extra love is flapping in the wind and there behind us bringing up the
rear, just like that chair, is the ministry that God has placed in our hearts.
A ministry that in a moment’s notice too can be swung around and put to use.
In the King James Version of the bible the word peculiar is
found seven times and in six of those instances it is used to describe God’s
people (I Peter 2:9, Deuteronomy 14:2, Deuteronomy 26:18-19, Titus 2:14, Exodus
19:5 and Psalms 135:4). In all of these instances the writers are saying that
we are set apart as the children of God and that this fact should be noticeable
by those around us because we seem different. Heck, seem? No way, we are
different! We have been forgiven of our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ and
then filled with the Holy Spirit.
So because of our actions, our words, and our love; people
should be pointing at us, thinking “That’s an odd one!”
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy
nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who
hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:: (1 Peter 2:9 KJV)
