There’s this thing that happens
when you go along with the crowd.
You become…
the crowd.
And the crowd,
if we’re being honest,
isn’t usually aiming high.
The crowd wants comfort.
The crowd wants approval.
The crowd wants safety in numbers.
But here’s the quiet truth beneath all of that:
If you always go along with the crowd
you will never be better than the crowd.
And if your deepest goal
is simply to fit…
to slide in unnoticed,
to blend so seamlessly no one even raises an eyebrow—
then you lose something sacred.
You lose the ability to stand out.
To shine.
To be… different
in the way God imagined when He imagined you.
This isn’t about arrogance.
Or superiority.
Or a holier-than-them posture.
No, no.
It’s about something far quieter.
Far more compelling.
It’s about living in such a way
that when people watch your life,
they whisper,
“There’s something… different about them.”
Not different as in strange.
Not different as in loud.
Different as in whole.
Different as in centered.
Different as in alive.
Daniel and his friends knew something about this.
They were teenagers carried off to a foreign city,
a place designed to flatten them,
rename them,
absorb them into the machine of the empire—
and yet…
they stood out.
Not because they tried to.
Not because they shouted at culture.
Not because they were trying to win anything.
They simply brought their very best.
Their best knowledge.
Their best wisdom.
Their best integrity.
Their best devotion to the God
who had shaped them long before Babylon tried to.
They didn’t dim who they were
to blend in with where they were.
What a thought.
But here’s the thing:
Standing out
only works
when God is real to you.
Like really real.
Real enough
to change your moral compass.
Real enough
to shape the way you do your work.
Real enough
to steady you
when telling the truth feels costly
and doing the right thing feels lonely.
You see, you can only stand out
when something deeper is holding you up.
Christmas whispers something to us—
something ancient,
something subversive,
something mind blowing.
Christmas tells us:
God didn’t stay distant.
God came near.
God came here.
God came with us.
Immanuel.
God.
With.
Us.
And if God is with us—
really with us—
then we don’t have to fear being different.
We don’t have to cling to the crowd.
We don’t have to disappear into sameness.
Because the One who stood out the most
came close enough
to make sure we could too.
So maybe this Christmas
isn’t just about carols and nativity scenes.
Maybe it’s about courage.
Maybe it’s about refusing to blend in
when God has called you to shine.
Maybe it’s about rediscovering the God
who steps into your Babylon
and whispers,
“I am with you.
Always.
Now go—
and live like it.”
phillipbrande.com 