Dude Looked Like a Lady

Okay, so I'm sitting in Starbucks at Main and Teel yesterday in the second notch of Bible Belting suburban Frisco doing some planning when a guy walked in wearing a yellow dress and a purse.

No joke.

He wasn't a dude trying to pass as a female. He was a guy in a dress getting coffee. He strolled in with as cavalier a demeanor as the cable guy on the second day. I moved my eyes around the shop to see if anyone seemed shocked, embarrassed, startled, or anything.

Not even a ruffle or nervous giggle.

I just wanted to pop my head up and say, "dude---help me understand--why?" But I just stared at my computer as if we were in downtown San Francisco at the Jamba Juice and this is normal. He got his coffee and left as Tuesday afternoon as it gets.

There are a couple of things that make me thankful for the guy in the yellow dress. Here they are...

1. Thank you for coming clean. We live in a very moralistically blurry area indeed. Unless this was a dare or something you seem to be showing your stripes. You love the world. We get it. You haven't left us wondering if the allegiance of your heart is with Jesus Christ, or the world that He's made. It's very easy for folks to hide their true allegiance and their primary love in a melting pot of affluence, churches, causes, and family values. I don't know you yellow dress man, but if that's for real--what you communicate is an honesty of your heart in what can be a synthetic carnival of shadows.

2. Thank you for rebuking me. I so rarely get asked the fundamental question I want to ask you, "why?" I want to ask you the reason why you're driven--even in the face certain opposition and suffering--towards that decision? Why does hopelessness seem to beget more courage than hope? Peter says the normal Christian life can at times be described as "always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you (1 Peter 3:15)." I'm not saying that you wearing a dress on Tuesday afternoon doesn't have an obvious advantage to a Christian being faithful in his cubicle week after week, but it does beg the question, "where does my allegiance to Jesus make those around me ask, what in the world is up with that guy--what is the reason for the hope that he has?"

Pray for the yellow dressed man--and for us to out-hope, out-rejoice the promises of the world by the hope that is in us...