Human nature is very interesting. We always try to label each other or put labels on ourselves. We label each other based on gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, nationality, hometown, etc.
In Western culture, when people want to get to know you, after asking you your name, people immediately ask "Where are you from?" and "What do you do?" To answer this personally, "My name is Scott. I'm from Los Angeles and I teach English in South Korea." Based on what I just told you, people may make very assumptions about me and put me in one of their categories.
In South Korea, age, job, and family background come into play. If you went to Seoul National University, you must be very smart. If you didn't, you were one of those that didn't try hard enough. If you live with your family and have brothers and sisters, you're normal. If you don't get along with your family, then your company or the blind date that you're on might think there's something wrong with you.
When I talk to fellow expatriates who live abroad, nationality, and location is huge in how we label ourselves. Sometimes if I hear that if we're getting a British teacher, I have this hope in my mind: "I hope the teacher has the sense of humor of Mr. Bean and not too serious like Hugh Laurie." Of if I hear that we're getting an American teacher, I might think to myself, "I hope she's not from New York City. That person might be too over-the-top and obnoxious for me to handle. Lord, let that person be from the west coast because we'll be able to get along better."
My wife is from Yanji, China. She's very specific in the way that she labels herself. She's ethnically Korean, but was born and raised in Northeast China, not too far from North Korea. She is not Chinese. She's not Korean. She's Korean-Chinese. She even distinguishes between how Chinese people, Korean people, and Korean-Chinese people make dumplings. And to her credit, all three of them are very different from each other.
Christians label themselves based on denominations, which is unfortunate. My coworker asked me which church I went to. I said it was non-denominational. She looked at me funny and wondered why there wasn't a denomination attached to it. She was probably thinking "Are you Baptist, Evangelical, Methodist, Lutheran, or do you just use the umbrella term Protestant?"
A friend from church is an adopted Korean. He was born in Korea but his mother gave him up as a baby. He has American parents but came to Korea to find his roots. Although he never found his birth mother, he's still thankful that he has loving parents.
On the other hand, people struggle with their sexual identity. We have so many letters associated with someone's sexual identity that we're up to 10 letters now: LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual). In case you don't know what some of these mean, asexual means no sexual feelings whatsoever. Any ally is someone that is heterosexual but supports the LGBT social movements. People that are pansexual say that gender and sex don't determine their sexual attraction towards someone.
To take it even further, some people claim themselves as non-binary or gender queer. They don't think of themselves as either male or female. People want to claim science when they discuss abortion or climate change but ignore it when talking about sex.
Finally to take it even one step further, you can be a woman that identifies as a cat (See video here) or a man that identifies as a filipino woman (See video here).
The world says "as long as you aren't hurting anyone, be what you want to be." And yes, maybe no one else is hurt on this Earth is hurt by what you want to be. But people that are non-Christians forget that they are hurting someone most important: God, the author of creation. The Lord has numbered every hair on our head (Luke 12:7) and he knew us before we were even born (Jeremiah 1:5). If we receive Jesus, we are immediately children of God (John 1:12). We were created male and female in his own image (Genesis 1:27). There is no accident and God does not want us to change who we were made to be.
And to Christians, it doesn't matter where you come from, how much money you make, what kind of family you have, and how important you are to society. The only thing that matters is Jesus. Don't get sucked into the world's standards of where you think you should be (Colossians 3:1-3). Nothing matters but the blood of Jesus. Without Jesus, we would be doomed anyway. Let's remember our identity in Christ and tell others how special He is. Everyone is worthy to receive grace (a free gift) and no one needs to work for it.
Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy
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