Should we up and go with him?

No way!



I conform in life. You conform in life.

It's when you swallow your opinions and beliefs for the sake of someone else, or to not offend someone else. Or because everyone else is doing something else.

Conforming isn't all bad, you know. Shutting up about how much you adore the President of France in the presence of someone who absolutely hates him is a kindness. Not being blatantly rude with the force of your opinions is just decent.

But changing the way you live? The way you think? Because it's cool? Because that's the way it's done? Because it's normal that way?

I'm sorry, but that's not okay with me.

People can say that they mean to impact culture. Great! I'm glad that they have that goal! But what do they do about it? Do exactly the same things that everyone in the culture already does, cause that's the way it's done. That's how to get popular. That's not an impact. That's becoming a chameleon.

Popularity is often the result of someone conforming. People like people that are similar to them, that don't challenge their ideas or "judge" them. Making an impact is very unpopular sometimes. Martin Luther King was killed. So was Lincoln. So were many popes. For that matter, so was God.

Conforming does not have to be to doing something that you don't like. Oh yes, you can like the thing that you're conforming to. You can like getting to see all of those cool movies or listening to that music, or going to that concert, but the fact of the matter is that we're called to something more.

I want to change the world. This weekend, I was presented with a choice. Go do something that I really wanted to do, or not do it and go for the greater good. The thing wasn't inherently bad. It even had some good parts. But when I looked at myself in real honesty, I knew that it would be an occasion of sin for me. I knew that, but I wanted to do it anyways.

So I'm not going to do it-- I'm gonna choose something different, something healthier. It's so hard to go beyond just being moral. To make an impact by being that one person who is different, who searches amid all of the muck in the world for that one bit of shine and beauty, for the great rather than the usual.

I'm not going to be popular because of these choices. But yesterday I was venting to my dad how much I hated conformism and settling for the normal, for the usual, and then I started doing the same thing and realized that I was being a hypocrite. Great move, me. I stopped partially because I felt guilty about it, but I guess that was one way that God showed me that I ought to stop.

So. Even when the situation's awfully dim and we feel that we should up and go with the other guy who's getting all the great stuff by conforming to the world, we should bite the bullet and say, "NO WAY!"

-Tina