Utterly Different

Different. Holy means utterly, wholly, completely, entirely, fully different. Nobody like the Holy One. A friend used to say, "He's the only One in His category." And He is, this God of ours.

We long to be different. Even when we run with the crowd it's because the crowd is different, set apart in some way from ordinary folk, maybe by colors, a style of dress, a language, secret words that mean secret things that only the crowd knows, maybe set apart by honors bestowed or criticism rendered. Even when we run with the crowd we long to be different.

And we are. there is a flavor to us, to you and to me, a flavor that God put there. It's the flavor of Himself, His image, and nobody else has it, or will ever have it, not just the way you have it and not just the way I have it. It's something God wanted to do. He wanted something of Himself in the earth,something of His likeness, and so all of those He held in Himself before anything came to be (Ephesians 1:3-4), all of us and each of us, got something of His image and each of us got something different.

Oh, it's marred and blurred and dim sometimes, and there's a lot of "not Him" that has to be wiped away and washed away or scraped away before the resemblance can be clearly seen, but it's there. We are different. I am different. You are different. Each of us, one of a kind, designed by God. Only in Him is our different-ness discovered, cleaned up and polished up and ready to be enjoyed.

We long to be different because we are.