The other day I came to realize I’m as strange as other people.

I think most of us think we are normal and everyone else is a little weird … or, at the very least, that other people have odd quirks about them that we don’t.

That’s not correct. I see now that we all have our little bits of oddness; we are all odd.

… Which reminds me of a club in my city – it’s called the Odd Fellows. Now there is a group that has embraced the fact that they are not like most people. They are okay with being strange, a little off-centre, even weird. And they have banded together to accept one another. 

I guess that’s what we should all do. 

I came to my realization of being odd during a conversation about the strange eating habits of other people. Granted it was almost dinner time, the BBQ smelt delicious and I was hungry. 

I mentioned that I knew a guy who didn’t like his food to touch and who ate his food one item at a time. 

My friend jumped in at that point and said, “What’s wrong with that? I don’t like my food to tough either and I always eat my food in an order.”

My first thought was, “Wow! There are two of them out there.” 

But that was really nothing compared to this guy I know. When he would eat pizza, he would separate all the parts. That’s right, the toppings (eg. pepperoni) would each go in separate piles, the cheese in another pile, leaving the crust bare. Then he would systematically eat each pile until that pizza all came back together in his belly. 

They say that when you eat, your food gets all mushed together, but when you eat like this guy I think your food actually reforms to its original prepared state!

That description even made my friend, who identified with this guy, exclaim, “Wow”, as in, “That guy really is weird.” 

But this is where it started getting spooky for me. I kept thinking and talking about how I eat some foods. 

For instance, when I have corn-on-the-cob with my meal, I always eat it first. Before I eat or taste anything else, I finish off my corn. But if the corn is already off the cob as kernels on my plate, then I eat them with everything else.

When I eat Chinese food, I always eat my egg roll first. I never leave it to the last, or eat part of it and save some for the middle of my meal. I down that thing first.

When I eat at Swiss Chalet, the first thing I do when I get my meal is butter that bun and eat it. I don’t touch the fries or the chicken until that bun hits the bottom of my stomach.

And It was right about then that I realized, “I’m as weird as the guy who eats pizza like it’s a  three course meal!” 

I don’t think I can handle the idea of me being weird so it must be that we are all a little odd … which actually makes us all the same.

Here’s the thing: We are all in need of the same saviour because, though our sins may be different, and some sin may SEEM worse than others, the fact is we are all the same in that we all sin. Never excuse your sin as being normal. We’re all in need of a Saviour – Jesus Christ – and His forgiveness.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What sin have you excused yourself of because you view it as normal? Leave your comments below.