Whole Life

I went to a seminar today by a man called Will Day entitled "My first 100 days at the Sustainable Development Commission". Not the most exciting title, but it was absolutely fascinating. This guy has worked for and managed some of the biggest NGO's in the world, including being one of the main guys behind Comic Relief, and now he's working advising the government on sustainable development. It was fascinating hearing how our current economic model of growth is not only completely unsustainable, as we've already seen with the recession, but not even necessary: it is possible to have prosperity without growth. It really struck a chord with me, as I am convinced in my heart that the answers to the world's problems do not lie in pure financial gain, but, as Will put himself, living within the environmental limits of our world to secure a future for everyone (or something along those lines).

Then in the question time, somebody asked what he thought about sustainable development as a 'holistic' way of seeing development. Holistic is a word that many people dislike, treating it like a meaningless jargony buzzword. Actually, holistic really means encompassing the whole of the spectrum of life, ie, not focussing on one driver for change, eg, economics, but including the broad range of important factors that need to be considered: environment, social prosperity, climate change, personal wellbeing, etc.

Living a holistic Christian life is really important too. Too often we can separate our lives into 'sacred' or 'secular', and see the latter as the unimportant bit, whereas the former is what God is really interested in. 'Sacred' activities include our private prayer life, reading the Bible, going to a bible study, church, helping out with youth group, or kids club, or whatever. 'Secular' basically means everything else, including school, or uni, or work. It's just stuff we do, but there's a lack of real connection between our faith and those activities. Actually, secretly deep down I think a lot of us enjoy the 'secular' activities more than the 'sacred' sometimes! But here's the Big Secret: there's no such thing as a sacred/secular divide!

It comes down to worship, I think. That word for a lot of people means singing, or playing in a band, or something you do along to a Matt Redman CD. For quite a few more, it means involving God in some way in our everyday lives, but we're somehow unable to quite connect it all up. Here's a tip: start viewing your mundane (or slightly more exciting) everyday life as something that God has given you to bring him glory in, as something that is meant to be as much a part of your spiritual life as the obvious stuff. In fact, we spend about 2/3 hours in "Christian" activity every week, but 30/40 hours at work, or in school, or...no, for uni it's about 15, but you get the picture. The place you're spending most of your time is your primary environment for worshipping God. I don't mean dancing around the open plan office whilst singing "Undignified" at the top of your life, but that actually the normal activities become a way of worshipping God as you pursue being excellent, or as you relate to your colleagues, or as you begin to see His hand in your circumstances, or begin to see how His message is relevant to what you're doing. I'm starting to see it, and today was a major step forward, realising there are those in the 'secular' world who are seeing through the darkness, and for me that's proof that God works His plans through the lives of those who don't even know Him yet, it's grace in abundance.

I've probably done the idea of holistic living a major underwhelming disservice here, but I'm just trying to convey the heart of it simply: everything you do matters, don't promote certain things over others because they all count. Priotise, sure, but don't see some things are completely unimportant because they have no easy connection to spiritual things. All things are spiritual to those who follow Him!

Times are changing

It's amazing how going into new things can serve as a way of seeing how you've changed. I don't think I'd realised it properly, but I have changed, a lot. If I consider myself now to who I was back when I left school (or even when I left uni first time round), I've learnt a lot about myself, about other people, about God, and about how they all interrelate. I see in myself different attitudes towards various aspects of life: I'm more confident, and I hope without being arrogant, and this has influenced the way I see things in the world.

I guess it's important to distinguish where the confidence comes from. If it comes purely from me, and my ability to achieve great things, then I'm pretty sure that actually that should be defined as pride. For me, this confidence has come from rediscovering and taking on board in a much deeper way who I am. At the surface level, I'm a Christian - but actually I guess that could mean any number of things, not all of them true or helpful. What it really means, is a whole myriad of things, all at the same time: I was once dead, but now I'm alive, made new and welcomed into God's family with open arms, because of Jesus and what he did for me on the cross. I have nothing to boast about in myself, only that Jesus considered me precious enough to pay the penalty of death for the life I've led in the past ignoring God. It's so freeing, because it means I don't have to strive hard to try and achieve something (perfection, the only other way God would accept me) that I could not even achieve anyway! It's freeing in the sense that not only do I not have to try and earn forgiveness, but I'm actually free to enter into a new life, with God, trying to follow him, knowing that instead of trying to please a harsh and demanding master, I'm engaging in life the way it was meant to be, with my Lord and Father right there with me, giving me the strength I need to grow and behave and think. I don't always get it right, but He's already dealt with that, so we keep going, ignoring whats already happened, pressing on regardless.

Whilst that was a major preach, it's so central to my perspective on life that it needed to be said. It hardly scratches the surface of what it means to be 'in Christ', a phrase I love right now and want to blog on sometime soon, but I hope it sums up why being a "Christian" is such an amazing privilege and exciting adventure. It doesn't matter what life throws at me because I'm safe, ultimately, in His hands - pain still affects me, but in the end it's meaningless when faced with the reality of heaven. It means that I can actively involve myself in work that will cause me pain, in order to serve others, knowing that there's joy in it, and also looking forward to when joy will be made complete. Knowing heaven is our final destination frees us to follow God's voice wherever it leads! I love it.

Sorry, another preach. I also wanted to make the point that I'm not a finished article: the work of sanctification, God's process of shaping and refining us to look like Jesus, bit by bit, is ongoing, and will never stop this side of heaven I think. It's why it's important to gain a bit of perspective once in a while about where we've come from, and where we are now.

The way in which God's done that for me is nothing short of breathtaking. He's allowed to me experience real lack of passion for what I was doing (my Masters project in SA), in order to teach me the value of doing something important even if right then and there it's the last thing I want to do. He's provided for me to travel round most of Southern Africa and see some amazing things, but constantly amaze me at His ability to provide me with opportunity to share about Him, and see His work in the hearts of those I encountered. He's given me a job where I'm able to appreciate how my thought process has changed, and how I understand much more now, and I'm able to connect the pieces information I receive together better. By no means satisfied with that though, I want to keep pressing on. Finally, He's put into my life a beautiful girl, who has made me realise how much I have changed in my attitude to relationships, partly through her own attitude to it all. I'm really appreciating how much God is using her to teach me things about Himself, about myself, and about His heart for relationship - not just romantic ones, but right now I guess that's my context =)