A Stranger To This World

Many years when I lived in Phoenix, I was out front of our house helping my husband  repair a broken window. There was the older lady that lived across the street sitting on her stool out front her house. I felt sorry for her because her husband and sons moved out, she was left there all alone.  I waved to let her know that someone saw her and cared about her. A few minutes later she was standing outside of my fence yelling at me. Shouting so loud the neighbor next door came out to see what was going on. According to her I was an alien, not from this world, evil because I didn’t belong to this world, and needed to return to the planet that I came from. By the time she was done yelling, the initial shock had worn of, I looked at her and with I smile I said that was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. She shrieked and went back to her house.

When we follow God’s Law people of this world are going to see us as strange. My son in his humanities class the teacher was talking about people who are a little strange like Mother Teresa leaving everything to go live in India. The she made an exception to my son because he has gone to Rwanda and plans to go back. My son was proud to wear that title.

God has supplied several verses to remind us that we do not belong to this world.

Psalm 119:19 — “I am a stranger on earth; do not hide your commands from me.”

1 Chronicles 29:15 — “For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.”

1 Peter 2:11-12 — “Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

So, the next time someone says something that you are strange according to the ways of the world. Smile and say, “Thanks!”