Like everyone else?

     As we continue our journey through The Story we come to the story of Samuel, the last judge over Israel.  Samuel was a special judge, dedicated to God's service by his mother after she miraculously conceived and bore Samuel.  God came to him one night and called him to be a truth-teller, and from that first call Samuel knew the hardship and difficulty of telling the hard truth, foretelling the ruin of his teacher's family.
     In the text for Sunday we will once again focus on Samuel's hard truth-telling.  This time, however, the truth does not just affect one family but the whole nation of Israel.  The Israelites had looked around at their neighboring nations and noticed something about them: they all had kings.  And, it tells us in 1 Samuel 8 that the people were determined to have a king, so that they would "be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.  It took much dialogue for Samuel to get to the heart of the peoples' desire for a king, but in the end they came right out and said it.  They simply wanted to be like everyone else.

     I can remember growing up and complaining to my mom that 'everyone else' was doing something that I couldn't do.  My desire to fit in and be like everyone else was so strong that I sometimes (and this is not something I'm proud of) went behind my mom's back to do something she wouldn't otherwise let me do.  I suspect that the Israelites would have done the same with Samuel if he had not given them a king in the end, and it goes to show how strong a desire to fit in can be.
     What the Israelites had forgotten was that because of their covenant relationship with God, who had chosen them out of all the other nations, they weren't like everyone else.  They were God's chosen people, set apart, and made holy so that all the nations would see their light and want to know their God.
     The same is true today for us followers of Jesus.  We struggle with the desire to be like everyone else - to have what they have, to do what they do, act as they act, believe what they believe.  But what we forget is that God has chosen us.  In the waters of baptism and joined to Christ, we are set apart, made holy, so that everyone else would see our light and want to know our God.
     As I have been thinking about my own desire to fit in, to be like 'everyone else' I often find myself running back to the baptismal font and reminding myself that God loves me - without the things I think I need, without me acting the way I think I need to act, without believe the way I think I need to believe.  God loves me just as I am, and more than that I am called to be no more than that.  Just me.  I came across this quote recently:

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
    Rudyard Kipling

God is the one who gives us company during those lonely times, comfort during those scary times, and God is ultimately the one who owns us - holds us - loves us.  After reading this text I am left pondering whether what I do, say, and believe comes from God in me or from my own desire to be like everyone else?