I was robbed. It’s a sobering feeling knowing that you have been robbed. You feel violated, you feel helpless and you begin to feel angry at knowing something was taken from you by a bully. Sometimes you can be robbed on a street corner but, often people are robbed in their very own home. Much of the time it is when you have been away from home for an evening and come back to find your home has been invaded and ransacked by an uninvited guest who has taken your possessions.
There are times when the thief lives in your home for years. I caught the culprit who was stealing from me. I kicked him out of the house but admittedly he comes back from time to time. I can’t really call the police on him. No one will be able to swear out an arrest or search warrant. In fact, he probably won’t ever be featured on the 10 o’clock news or one of those national hack television shows that love to magnify horrendous crimes in front of our very eyes.
This thief caused me to do some very embarrassing things when he was victimizing me. When I was in junior high school, he made me put Dippity-Do and pink hairstyle tape on my head. No, it wasn’t at gunpoint that I did these things that conjure up ridiculous images. You see, this thief is named “Peer Pressure”. I went to great dramatics to straighten my hair because I thought Jerry Ballard was a very cool guy and I wanted to be just like him. So, there I would sit under a huge hair dryer hood with pink tape and Dippity-Do in my hair dancing to the tune that the thief Peer Pressure was singing.
He caused me to lie about the style of tennis shoes I was wearing. My parents couldn’t afford Adidas shoes and had bought me a knock off brand that looked similar. I told my friends that mine were Adidas. But, I didn’t know that the blue Adidas tennis shoes had 3 stripes as compared with my 4 stripes. I got laughed at and felt so humiliated at being caught in a lie.
Recently, I went shopping with my wife. As I stood in the ladies lingerie section nervously awaiting her to finish her browsing, I looked down and saw a bra being advertised as “Instantly 2 sizes larger”. Upon further investigation there were bras that promised to “push up”. I always thought pushups were those torturous exercises we did in Marine Corps boot camp. As we continued to shop, we went by the cosmetics department where there were gazillion different types of makeup. I will never forget the lady in my church in Alabama who was horrified that she would not be able to have cosmetics on when giving birth to her baby. The thought of letting someone see the real her instead of the cosmetically disguised lady was nearly more than she could bear.
I can’t claim to be immune from the thief known as Peer Pressure. He keeps creeping into my life when I least expect it. But, he doesn’t have the stranglehold on me that he formerly did. I would love to have a new truck. Somehow the dent in the door and the duct tape on the mirror isn’t the most visually appealing. But, I like having it paid off and no matter how much people may laugh at my truck I am not buying a new one anytime in the near future. The other day I wore olive drab trousers with a blue shirt and I don’t care who thought it clashed. It’s what I wanted to wear.
Karl Marlantes in his memoir “What It is Like to Go to War”, states, “We all want to be special, to stand out; there’s nothing wrong with this. The irony is that every human being is special to start with. But we then go through some sort of boot camp form the age of zero to about 18 where we can learn everything we can about how not to be unique.” His statement is one of the saddest truths. Why would we sacrifice our uniqueness to fall into some kind of a cookie cutter mentality that hinders our spiritual growth.
Recently, I asked my 1300 or so Facebook friends to post one word that described me. It was fun and special to see the replies of loyal, inspirational, integrity, etc. I almost felt like I was watching my own funeral. But, the reply that really stuck out was when one of my friends said “peculiar”. As I pondered that word I recalled the passage in I Peter 2:9, where it says, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2:9 KJV
As a Christian, I am to follow the leading of God’s spirit not the pressure of what everybody else is doing. The Apostle Paul spoke of being a slave to Christ. Peer pressure will put a veil between you and the Lord’s glory in your life. Just as Jesus said you can’t serve God and mammon…you also can’t hear God communicate His will in your life if you are pressured by a fallen Babylonian system that does not seek to honor God in the least. Don’t let the thief of Peer Pressure rob you of the Christ centered joy you should be experiencing in life. The Christian life will make you somewhat peculiar…and that’s a good thing.