The Outsider

I’ve been, what you could consider an outsider, in many things throughout my life. In fact, I’ve probably been an outsider looking in, more often than I’ve been on the inside looking out. Actually, I’m not sure I can think of a time that I’ve ever been an insider.

               Being an outsider has always had a negative connotation to it. You’re outside of the group. Outside of the trends. Outside of the societal norm. Any nobody ever wants to be an outsider. The Bible would have you believe that being an outsider is a good thing. Jesus was definitely an outsider – at least from the perspective of society in Bible times. He didn’t fit the mold. He wasn’t exactly welcomed with open arms everywhere he went. We’re called to be like Jesus, which means we should be striving to be the outsiders. To be the ones in the trenches and the battlefields, right along with the other outsiders. But let me tell you something. Being okay with being an outsider is hard to accept when we live in a world where people are constantly clawing their way to being ‘in’. Where being part of the ‘in crowd’ is the goal. Where being the one comfortably sitting in your mansion on the hill and staring out at the people below seems to be the way success is measured.

               Despite the fact that I’ve almost always found myself on the outside, I wouldn’t say that I’ve grown comfortable there. I still craving being inside. Why? I’m honestly not really sure. Other than I think it’s in my nature. Just like it’s probably in everyone’s nature. And while I’ve always been an outsider. I’ve also always been in good company. Which makes it seem not so bad. Being in a band of outsiders is more bearable than being alone.

               For the first time in a long time. Well, maybe ever, actually, I was put in a situation where I sure I would feel like a true outsider. The kind that doesn’t find itself part of a group. It wasn’t a major, life altering situation that I found myself out side of. But it didn’t matter. It was still terrifying.

               I have a friend. And I would say that if anyone has come close to mastering the art of embracing the position of outsider, it’s her. She has told me before that she struggles to find where she ‘fits’ in life sometimes, but she. lives. life. And she lives it hard. She doesn’t let anything stop her or get in her way and she kicks fear aside like it’s an old worn out tennis shoe. She inspires me to be brave and fearless because she is brave and fearless. So when she invited me to lunch at her aunt and uncles with her extended family, completely on a whim, it made it impossible for me to say no.

               I was terrified. I would be a true outsider – the only non-family at a family gathering. How weird would that be? Did her aunt and uncle even know she invited me? Would they want me there? I had been peer pressured by her brother, her cousins, and even her grandma to go, but I can never tell if people in these situations truly mean it or if it’s just the ‘nice’ thing to do. With a little bit of resistance and veins filled with fear, I gave in and went. A true outsider. There wasn’t a group of us this time. There was everyone who was family. And then there was me.

               But, you guys. I quickly found out that I wasn’t an outsider. Not to them. They ushered me in, sat me down at the family table and talked to me like I belonged there. Somehow, some way, they snuck me in some back door that I didn’t even know existed and turned me straight from outsider to insider.

               While I had grown to know my friend’s extended family a little bit, I wouldn’t say I knew them well. Yet they welcomed me and view the extra mouth to feed as a blessing rather than a burden. When her uncle greeted me at the door, he said “I’m glad you came. A friend of family is family too.” At first, I thought ‘Well that’s a nice thing to say’. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he truly meant it.

               That’s when I realized that to an outsider, this might have looked like a gathering of family that shares a bloodline. But really, it wasn’t. It was a gathering of family that supersedes bloodlines. God’s family. And in His family, there are no outsiders. Even though Jesus was thought to be an outsider, the reality is that he was the ultimate insider. You don’t get more ‘inside’ than he was. It’s just that a lot of people weren’t looking inside the right window to know that.

               Sometimes I think maybe that’s the problem of outsiders everywhere. They (We) spend too much time focusing on how to get into the front door of society’s mansion that they (we) don’t even notice that the back door to God’s mansion is wide open. Sometimes it takes family of friends to sneak you in that back door to remind you that it’s there. And that you’re not an outsider. At least not where it really matters. Because outsiders in God’s family, aren’t really outsiders at all.