It will only be in the next life that we discover how much of an impact we really did have. But even that should not be our main concern. Our real aim must be to love God fully and seek to do his will. And yes, to do his will fully and fervently will mean that we will be misfits.

Maladjusted Christians? Yes, in the eyes of the world this will always be the case. And before you think I am going off the deep end again, let me remind you of 1 Samuel 22:2: “All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander. About four hundred men were with him.” As I remarked in an earlier piece:

It is interesting that David, who at the time was not on the throne, but was being hounded and chased around the country by Saul, found himself to be a magnet for those who were on the fringes of society, those who did not fit in, those who were discontented and in distress. The really amazing thing about this motley crew of rejects, misfits and outsiders is that they went on to do many mighty things for God and David. We read about these men later in the Old Testament narratives. In 2 Samuel 23, 24 and 1 Chronicles 11, 12 we learn about “David’s mighty men”. billmuehlenberg.com/2009/11/29/david%e2%80%99s-mighty-men-godly-discontentment/

So we have biblical precedent here. Indeed, a study of the Bible and church history will also reveal this truth. God’s people will always be outsiders. We will always be seen as misfits and oddities and even freaks. That is how the true son or daughter of God has always been considered, by both the world and by worldly Christians.

Here I want to discuss this further, utilising an important Christian thinker I have just featured in my last two articles: Os Guinness. His book Prophetic Untimeliness (Baker, 2003) is discussed here: billmuehlenberg.com/2022/06/16/prophetic-passion-and-resistance-thinking/

Today I want to further explore Chapter 5 of the book: “The Price of Faithfulness.” It begins this way: “A French resistance leader was once asked how he explained the fact that his men had been so heroic. He thought for a while, and then answered: ‘We weren’t heroic. We were simply maladjusted enough to know that something was seriously wrong’.”

He examines unheeded messengers such as John the Baptist, Churchill and Solzhenitsyn. Despite their differences they shared some common virtues:

Discernment of the times; courage to repudiate powerful interests and fashion; perseverance in the face of daunting odds; seasoned wisdom born of a sense of history and their nation’s place in it; and—supremely with the Hebrew prophets—a note of authority in their message born of its transcendent source. No feature of the unheeded messengers, however, is more common than the link between the brilliance of their perspective and the burden of their pain. . . . Both are the result of being outsiders, and for any Christian who would speak out today in a time of the church’s deepening cultural captivity, prophetic untimeliness carries a clear cost.

He lists three such costs. The first is “a sense of maladjustment.” Says Guinness: “When society is increasingly godless and the church increasingly corrupt, faithfulness carries a price. The man or woman who lives by faith does not fit in. . . . 

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