The "Other" People

My wife and I love the show "LOST".  It is one of our favorite series, and probably the only series in which we both can agree on to sit down and watch together.  We have different tastes.  What can I say. Mom always tells me to get a den or man cave for our house.  She may be on to something.

Anyways, on the show you have the group of people on the island that have crashed, "the survivors".  Then, there is the group called "the others".  That's what everyone says throughout the entire six seasons.  What are the others doing?  What do the others want?  Why are the others bothering us?

For more reference on "the others", visit this previous post which has a video synopsis of "LOST": How to be Like John Locke.

Sometimes as Christians we act like the survivors, wouldn't you say?  I know sometimes I do.  I stay in my group, where it is comfortable.  I talk to people I know.  I talk to people that I believe are just like me or at least similar.  I'm man enough to admit that, yeah, sometimes my humanness gets me and I look at people as the "others".

I tell you what it really is; we get scared.  We see differences we don't understand.  Everyone knows I am a huge Batman fan, too.  In Batman Begins, the big mob boss looks at Bruce Wayne and he says, "You're always afraid of what you don't understand."

How true is that?  I know that if I see people I don't resonate with sometimes it scares the crap out of me to imagine talking to them or building a relationship.

Lately, I've been pushed out of my comfort zone.  With how God is working in my life lately, I'm not sure that I even have a comfort zone anymore.

I'm the kind of guy that will talk to a fork if it would acknowledge me most days.  My job involves a lot of talking and some days I'm just done with talking.  We having been working with youth for almost a year and a half now.  In that period I've found myself talking to students that I otherwise wouldn't have spoken to.  It's not them; it's always been me.

God is moving me to understand that people are people.  I'm slowly learning and it is a hard concept when we grow up in a culture of "us 4 no more" mentalities. It's all about breaking the cycle and living as Jesus did which is loving people that everyone else viewed as rotten, despicable, and unworthy.

I'm glad that He loved me, because I am unworthy.  The least I can do is push myself to love like Christ.  I haven't read yet anywhere that said living for Christ's cause is easy, but with a reward such as we will be given, eternal life with Christ, how can it not be worth it?

I encourage you to step out of your survivors circle and see the others for who they are:  people trying to make it just like you and just like me.