countercultural

This weekend I went on a High School retreat up in the mountains.

No, I am not a High Schooler. :)

But I did hang out with High Schoolers all weekend. And that means I didn't get enough sleep. But now it's a week later and I've mostly recovered.

But the most striking thing about this weekend was something our speaker said. He said that we have to "live weak". He was talking about 1 Corinthians, where Paul talks about his "thorn in the flesh" and when he is weak, then he is strong.

Runks (our speaker) was talking about how we always try to live in our own strength, but really we need to be counter-cultural. We need to live weak.

Huh.

I never really thought about how often it means to live as a Jesus Follower means to be counter-cultural. And it struck me that unless you aim to be counter-cultural, you really are not any different than everyone else around you.

Counter-cultural.

Fitting in, being like everyone else, going with the flow - these are all things that go AGAINST us being counter-cultural. We need to go against the flow, not with it. We need to live weak. Because only then can God really work through us to accomplish much greater things than we can by ourselves.

Counter-cultural: my new favorite word.
K