on the outside of the circle

This is what my inner circle tends to look like...a closed environment of a hand-select few I enjoy spending my time with,
sharing life with,
being open with.
They are the ones I am comfortable with...
can say almost anything to
and accept me for who I am.
I am not afraid of being seen beside them in the street.
I pick up their phone calls.
reply to their emails.
and unlock my door when they come down my driveway.

God's been convicting me of something as of late...the internals of circles.
The unspoken membership requirements.
The unwritten rules of admittance.
And I had to wonder,
would Jesus get an invite in?
If he was socially awkward?
Tucked his shirts into his shorts and hiked up his socks?
Dropped corny pick up lines?
Or told dry jokes?
Sure...we'd tolerate him in public, and extend a civil sympathetic conversation,
but would we invite him to our social outings?
our house parties?
Christmas dinner?

"...there was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected...
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised and we did not care." (Isaiah 53)

This is where we have to turn off our human perceptions and ask God to crank up our spiritual discernment. We naturally gravitate to people who are similar to us...but we need to come to the realization that this is what God's circle looks like...one that sees the spiritually awkward, and is not ashamed to call them not just his friends, but his children.
One that nailed social protocol to a cross and hung in our place.
One that calls us to see past our own comfort zones and into a place that recognizes each soul as a being created in the image of God.