Withdraw

Ever since the early church, there has been a group of people, or multiple groups of people even. That decide they must remove themselves from the world around them. Nuns, monks, and we will hear of hermits that shun the world, then there are the people that arn't so withdrawn but wouldn't associate like I used to do. Normally this is done with the very best of intentions in mind. Regardless it is also most often wrong. Finding a quite place an praying, studying alone, taking a brief retreat to rejuvenate, all of these are awesome things. But I think for most of us, at some point in our life it becomes quite tempting to exclude ourselves from the world.

Now most of us wont go so far as moving out into the mountains, away from civilization, but we might fall into the same trap that I fell into. I went to a public school for my high school years, but I was very much not there. Sure I would talk to people, and I was about as social as a timid guy can be, but as soon as I left school that was it. I had zero actual ties with any of those people.

I had friends, they were all Christians, and they went to church, generally with me. But at school I had acquaintances, people I knew, but had no real relationship with. None of them where actually my friends, after all I figured why would I want friends that were headed to hell.

Unfortunately my bad, I have no idea if the people I went to school with saw our "relationship" in quite that light, but that's pretty much how i viewed it. But that's nothing like the picture I see painted in the Bible, and I'm trying to make up for how retarded I was in my zeal for keeping myself holy.

Why? Because the God I know tells me to be in the world, not of it. (On a side note I feel it is worth bringing up, that this exact phrase doesn't appear in the Bible. Yeah I was pretty surprised.) It does say this though

^{John 17:15-17}

¹⁵My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. ¹⁶They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. ¹⁷Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.

We are sorta supposed to participate in things. And the Jesus I know was constantly getting spoken down of because of his pretty constant association with sinners. Just for reference reasons here's one example that I have always liked.

Luke 7: 33-34

³³For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, 'He has a demon.' ³⁴The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."

Now obviously we know Jesus was nether a glutton or a drunkard, the whole being without sin thing, but I'm pretty sure he counted those sinners as his friends. Matter of fact one of those scumbag tax collectors became one of the twelve. And I believe we are expected to act the same way. Why well because of verses like this
1 Peter 2:11-12
¹¹Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. ¹²Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Not "if" "though" as in its going to happen, in my opinion meaning we are going to be doing things, and associating with people in ways that will open up opportunity's for people to accuse us of things.

Why did Jesus get chastised for working on the Sabbath, because He did. Why did Jesus get associated with tax collectors, sinners, and other unclean people, because He associated with them. Why did Jesus get questioned on "Lord don't you know what this woman has done?", because yes He did know what she had done but He let her touch Him anyway.

The Jesus I know tells me to be like Him. As I said before I got it wrong, I've been making steps to fix that.