Fitting In 

   “You must give up your old way of life; you must put aside your old self, which gets corrupted by following illusory desires.  Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on the new self that has been created in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth.” (Eph 4: 22 – 24) 

   Christians never have and never will fit in with society at large.  Our goals and objectives are vastly different and in many ways completely incompatible.  We must quit trying to straddle the fence and choose a side.  Either we are on the side of God or the side of society and the evil which permeates it, we can’t have it both ways.

   Non-believers, even our family and friends, will not accept the Christian way of life we wish to live.  They don’t understand it and, in most cases, have no desire to even try.  Our beliefs and the way we live our life is an embarrassment for some; they want us to tone down our “religious fanaticism" and be more “normal”.  They want us to fit in.

   When I chose to become an Oblate of the order of St. Benedict it was in large part because I wanted to distance myself from society and its ways, to live for God as completely as possible.  Taped to my mirror is a sentiment that I renew in my heart each morning, “I am a brother of the monks; I belong to the monastic Order; I am no longer of the world.”

   To live a Christian life is to live differently, in the world but not of the world.  It takes courage and it takes prayer, faith, and trust in God.  When this life is over my hope is to be able to honestly say, “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith…..” (2 Timothy 4: 7 – 8)