Seeing Red

I had a scary moment today. I went to type in my username and password in this blog’s website. But what showed up on my screen was the word ‘invalid.’ I tried typing in password after password but the same word showed up on my screen. My panic level began to rise. Did someone hack into my account? I just started this blog! Then I could start feeling the anger begin to rear its ugly head. Are you kidding me? I’m new to this whole blogging thing! Why would someone do this? Turns out, I just had typed one letter as a capital letter when the original had all lower case letters. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a public breakdown. That would have been embarrassing. This over dramatic experience got me thinking. How many times is my first reaction to hit the angry red button? I see red when I see facial hair trimmings left on the bathroom sink. I yell when I step on a toy for the 20th time in one morning. My eyes roll around in my head like marbles when someone cuts in front of me in the checkout lane. Steam comes out of my ears when I see that a bird has used my van for target training practice right after the car wash. Why is my first reaction an out of control, scary monster that comes crawling out of my depths with a roar? My paramount conclusion: sin. Yep, sin. Sin is actually a natural response because sin is part of our DNA. Society wants us to think that our first response is the correct one. According to the rest of the world, it’s okay to yell at someone who cuts us off in the turn lane. We should be allowed to be upset when things don’t go as planned. I will be the first one in line to tell you I am just as guilty of living this lifestyle. But hitting the pause button is not natural. It’s supernatural. It requires a divine intervention. It is not normal to have a pleasant conversation with someone who has taken the last milk off the shelf. If we are to be the ” light of the world,” we are to be a comfort and show restraint on our out of control emotions. This is difficult to do if we come roaring in like a tornado, wreaking havoc and causing destruction. How on Earth do we do this? That’s just it. We can’t succeed at this if we consider ourselves a part of this world. We have to separate ourselves from what society says is normal and seek the lifestyle that is laid out by God. We are not perfect. We make mistakes. But if we allow God to train us to press the pause button first, we can show the world our loving God. We can show others that we are not of this world, we are unnatural. This is an abnormal lifestyle, a movement that made the disciples look weird. Let’s join together and be a part of this odd society of calm, gentle people.  I never liked being normal anyway.