They say that people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks. This sounds like practical wisdom to me that would make sense to just about everybody. There is always the one person, however, who is driven to test the theory. He needs to throw stones to see if this is true. More accurately, to prove that it can be done. This rebel lives life by a different set of rules.
You know who I am talking about, the individual who always turns left when the sign says turn right. She swims upstream when everyone else floats downstream. She refuses to fit in. He drives a 4 x 4 so he can traverse every closed road and wants 
to experience all things dangerous. He breaks the mold for the sake of breaking the mold. He can’t stand being a clone in a homogenous people group, so he scratches his way out of the bubble of the mundane and the regular to be different.
You see people every day desperately trying to express their individuality through rejection of the status quo. So they dress radically, tattoo everything, pierce anything that can be pierced, color hair and body parts with shades only previously seen in Crayola’s 64-pack, and personify their need to be seen and heard as someone who is desperately trying to be themselves. But for many, it is that concept of “self” that has more gray in it than an old episode of “Twilight Zone.” For most, they are still attempting to define in their minds what that means, all they know is that they are unique and their most basic statement is that they are very different from you.
The truth is that they are different from you and they know it. The Bible teaches that each person is formed uniquely and is known and loved individually by God. I believe this truth is deeply rooted in all people and until we have hardened our heart to reject God, people are still searching for what it is that is missing.
Some people criticize Christianity complaining that all religion, including a life based upon faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Bible, is an antiquated concept irrelevant to the state of an evolved society, a crutch to support the basic flaws in undeveloped, unsophisticated human beings. Is that really true? Mainline national television and radio commentators are appalling in their utter boldness these days as they spew anti-Christian rhetoric previously only reserved for the smut masters and shock jocks. The Bible describes such people as the incarnate definition of a fool. They complain further that Christians are simply pawns in a self-serving religious system and do not use their primate-evolved brains that have been provided them through the loving kindness of the natural selection and evolutionary processes. (Please allow me; I am smiling right now at the shear silliness of it all.)
Nonetheless, since there are so many young people today who have not codified in their minds either a total rejection of God such as the secular humanists proselytize nor a personal faith in Christ and relationship with him as I would encourage, they find themselves in the middle, unsure, undetermined, in a state that Jesus described as “lost.” They have lost their way in life as sheep without a shepherd, with no wisdom nor hope, having no one to provide direction, care and a way out of the mire that has developed in a land full of blind leaders. These are the ones Jesus said the “good shepherd” goes out and gets. Do you ever think of Jesus as a rescue hero? That is exactly who he is.
When I see someone communicating their individuality through their appearance or their ideas, I am encouraged. This tells me that they might have what it takes to possibly stand up to the onslaught of mind-control talking heads in media and in the classroom. Yes, I know, I just stooped to one of the shock statements that are usually used against Christians by their self avowed opponents. Here is my point; most local critics that I talk to don’t actually think for themselves either. They retell what they’ve heard; they follow their leader’s doctrine, and when challenged, defer to someone else’s book, article, or talk show to express what they believe. In short, they have placed their trust in their guru and it has become a faith-based religion to them.
So the next time you see someone wearing more black than Zorro and sporting more pierced body parts than Achilles, don’t throw rocks at them lest you break something valuable. When they get a hold of what is true and their energy is channeled toward the heart of God, we may see that person being used to do tremendous things in this world to shine a light in a very dark place.