Have You Ever Been an Outsider?
Most of us have had the outsider experience, for better or worse.
Have you ever been an outsider, someone alienated or stuck on the outside of a group? Most of us have at some point. In Insider Outsider, I talk about my experience of being an outsider in first grade. That’s right, the insider-outsider dynamic starts early.
I was one of the few students who couldn’t read and required special instruction, so I was sent to a reading specialist for part of the day with a few other students. I remember having to leave the rest of the class and feeling embarrassed and confused. Why couldn’t I stay? Why couldn’t they do the extra instruction in the room? Why couldn’t I read yet?
Being an outsider makes you feel isolated, de-valued, and overlooked. And that’s because we have a deep longing to be fully known and fully loved. And being an outsider stings on both fronts. When we’re on the outside, we feel as if we aren’t worth knowing and aren’t valued or loved for our uniqueness, for just being who we are.
But this terrible experience has its origins well beyond expectations for a first-grade reading level. It goes back, way back, to a God-given garden and a simple choice. Sin is what made us outsiders with reference to God. That’s the truth that colors all of our experience. We became outsiders in Adam when we chose two things in our disobedience.
Knowing good and evil on our own is better than knowing them by trusting in God.
Loving ourselves will be more satisfying than loving God.
In other words, we made ourselves outsiders by choosing not to know and love God above all else. We rejected him.
The beauty of the gospel is that Jesus Christ, the holy insider of the all-knowing and all-loving Trinity, became an outsider so that we could be insiders! He made a way for us to be fully known and loved by a holy God. Apart from him, we remain outsiders, looking to be known and loved by what can never satisfy.
Most of us have been outsiders, but because of Jesus, we don’t ever have to be outsiders with God. He invites us to know and love him even as we are fully known and loved by him. Praise the God who changes us from the inside out!!
