God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John 1:6 [NLT]

God sent so many of his servants to a literal desert to set them apart from family, and from society, to prepare them to be different. A person can live in isolation in a tent if he knows it’s just for a weekend but let him live that way for years and he will return peculiar. He will not be governed by the mindset of the mainstream.

This was John the Baptist. The desert was his home. He didn’t look like, eat like, or talk like anyone else. He was God’s peculiar servant. Isolation in the wilderness shaped him to craft the message of repentance that would prepare the path for the Messiah.

Elizabeth and Zachariah were his parents. Both encountered God uniquely and lived out their faith at home. But greater than even that was the pre-natal encounter John had with pre-born Jesus in Mary’s womb. Any child who encounters the Spirit of the living Christ is not like other children. He is marked, set apart, and uniquely wired to live differently. John, throughout his life, would not be edited. No biblical text hints that he was shy to speak. He was willing to offend even the most religious and leave them trembling with either anger, or with conviction.

John’s life challenges me in powerful ways. I encountered the Spirit of the living Christ at 3 years old. I sensed Jesus near me and it happened repeatedly, especially when sitting at the piano. That kind of early holy encounter should have made me fearless. It should have given me a voice that lived out loud, like John’s. But I grew up in a home where the unspoken family mission was to offend no one. I learned to measure my words before I spoke them, to soften my convictions before they were rejected, and to live under the power of other people’s edits.

I want to infect the atmosphere with the language of the peculiar; with words that are shaped by heaven, with courage born of conviction, and with love strong enough to tell the truth.

Lord, I do not want to spend my life translating holy fire into acceptable language.