DARE TO BE DIFFERENT! That’s the call that Jesus placed upon my heart as we enter into this Lenten season. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT! Being different really is something we have to dare to do because being different can often be one of the most costliest things that we do in our lives. More costly than buying a house or a car, more costly than any other purchase that we might make, being different costs us, and oftentimes being different costs us dearly.
Sometimes that call is to be different from those around us. Sometimes being different means not doing or saying what those around are doing or saying, even when those around us are in the majority. Sometimes it means speaking out or standing up for an unpopular truth, which can be a common occurrence in our society today where many people are focused on the catchphrase of “my truth,” as if somehow we can just create a version of the truth that fits the narrative that we want to proclaim! No, there isn’t “my truth,” there’s only “THE TRUTH,” and most of the time it doesn’t center around what I want the truth to be.
But daring to be different doesn’t mean just daring to be different from others, it means daring to be different than ourselves. It means confronting the truth about who we really are, not who we’d like to think we are. Daring to be different means honestly admitting the areas of our lives where real growth & change is needed. That’s where the real cost comes in. It costs to let go, it costs to change. Daring to be different demands a lot of us and so many of us, myself included, at times throughout our lives have not been willing to pay that cost, we’ve not dared to be different. Maybe the call of this Lenten season is to open up our checkbooks (maybe not our literal ones) and dare to pay the steep cost that change often de- mands. My brothers and sisters, let’s dare to be different!