Sacred Mundane: The Blog

I was reminded today how sacred fellowship truly is.  I’ve mentioned before that I’m one of those closet introverts who can do a real good “extrovert act” but I recharge and am restored through alone-time.  I love being alone.  Before Dutch was born I had four months of being at home (and in school) without working.  And after Dutch was born I had six months home alone before we moved in with my parents.  I truly loved every second of it.   So sometimes it’s too easy for me to just do my solo-act and forget how much my spirit is nourished through sacred fellowship.

And today I was reminded how truly sacred fellowship really is.  We are social beings.  God created us to function in relationship.  God Himself, our Triune God, is in Himself ever and always in relationship within the Godhead and with us as His creation.  He placed us in families and calls us to congregate in local churches to function as His hands and feet in relationship.  We are challenged, sharpened, loved, edified, and exposed through our relationship with others.  I know the desert fathers were amazing people, but I truly do not know how you can dig down deeper in the love and knowledge of our Lord without the fellowship of other believers.  This is why I love the The Hawk and The Dove trilogy, because it highlights that even in the life of these devoted monks, who devoted enormous amounts of time to individual prayer and study, their growth, struggles, and epiphanies came largely through their relationship with eachother. 

So after being sick for two weeks, a couple other girls and I finally got together for a playdate with our five kids, four of which are little boys 2-3 years old.  You can imagine the orchestra of engine, explosion, and siren sounds in our little living room!  (But you cannot imagine the explosion of cracker crumbs under our dining room table! 🙂 Jeff walked in as I was sweeping and started laughing and said, “What happened?!”  I smiled and said, “Awesome playdate!” ) 

It was such a sweet and sacred time.  The kids played with trucks, went on a “monster hunt” through all the bedrooms, and stacked Legos to their hearts content.  We moms soaked up the rare treat of actually sitting down on the couch, with kids happily occupied, and being able to converse and encourage one another.  As always, I was amazed how similar our lives are–joys, sorrows, struggles.  We all are dealing with different challenges, yet each requires the same response on our part–faith and trust that our Heavenly Father is in control. 

So now I’m just soaking up the silence (kind of, Dutch is apparently having a dance party on his bed), and thanking God for the sacredness of fellowship. 

It’s 4:32am and I’ve been awake for 2.5 hours.  I’ve entered the 9th month of pregnancy and with it the inevitable season of sleeplessness.  Despite the fact that I’m exhausted every night–somehow I lie here, thinking, unable to find sleep.  I wonder what my labor will be like this time…I need to remember to pack my cereal this time so I don’t have to eat that awful hospital food…what do I need to do to get ready?…I should pay that garbage bill tomorrow…oh and I need to change our garbage to weekly February 1st since we’ll have two in diapers…I wonder if I should buy more newborn diapers, 2 packages will only last a week…in a week Jeff will be teaching at the junior high retreat, I need to pray for him…I pray that our houses sell, I’m so ready to nest and settle and feel some permanence…I wonder if the people who saw the house today will buy it…mortgage rates are sure low right now, I wonder what they are…ugh, these mild contractions are annoying…I’m so glad we have the humidifier on…I wonder if Dutch is ok without his humidifier…I hope we all get healthy soon…

You get the picture. 

First of all, sleep.  Sleep is sacred, sleep is spiritual!  I remember in college being so overloaded, trying to do so many things, involved in so many ministries, I was getting overwhelmed, discouraged, and burdened. I remember Ryan Sugai saying, “Kari, sleep is spiritual.  Get some sleep.”  I’ll always remember that.  Since then I’ve often though of Psalm 127:2 which says, “It is vain for you to rise up early,To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.”  Rest, peace, sleep, is a gift from God.

I also have been known to tout the benefits of “a nap and a snack.”  After Elijah’s famous victory (God’s famous victory through Elijah) on Mount Carmel, rather than running victory laps and dancing for joy, the legendary man of God finds himself overwhelmed by fear, exhausted, discouraged, despairing even of life.  “I have had enough, Lord…take my life,” is what he says (1 King 19:5)!  How’s that for overwhelmed and discouraged?  And what does He do?

By the grace of God, he lies down and goes to sleep.  Then an angel wakes him up and provides him with…food.  A cake of bread and some water.  Elijah needed a snack.  Then he lay back down and slept again (two naps!).  Then an angel woke him up and told him to eat some more (two snacks!).  And strengthened by this he traveled 40 days and 40 nights.  How’s that for restored?!  I’ve often thought how big the monsters seem when we are hungry, weary, and sleep-deprived. A nap and a snack may be the most spiritual thing one can do to persevere in the race of faith.

But then there are times like these. Sleepless times.  And these are sacred too. Jesus was known to spend all night praying on occasion (Luke 6:12).  As with sickness, God can whisper to us in these moments when all is silent and still.  I cannot say that I enjoy sleepless nights, but I do ask God for the grace to take my wandering thoughts, anxieties, and questions about the future, and turn them to him through prayer.  And in one short month, as I hold my new little daughter in my arms, another season of sleepless nights will begin, and another season of sacredness will begin.  So now it is 5am.  I think I’ll have some cheerios and take a quick nap before dawn…

Dutch and I have been sick for more than 2 weeks now.  In fact, between his burns, then my sickness, then his sickness, then my sickness again I feel like it’s been ages since we were full strength.  And honestly…it’s getting old.  A simple cold seems insurmountable when I’m 8-months pregnant.  Then adding a sick toddler, getting the house show-ready, and then some significant stresses from our other house situations this week, today I hit the breaking point–I was so tired from not sleeping and being sick and up with Dutch at night I melted into a heap of tears.  “I can’t do this anymore,” I cried to Jeff.

And all week I’ve thought, “Oh it’d be good to write a post called The Sacredness of Sickness.”  But you know what, all week I couldn’t think of one blasted reason why sickness is anything other than frustrating.  I missed play-groups, dates with friends, and now I’m missing the highlight of my week: Saturday night and Sunday morning church.  How can there be anything sacred about that?

And to tell you the truth I’m not yet rejoicing and saying, “Oh how good it is to be miserable and sick and tired!”  But I turned today to 1 Corinthians 12:8-9 to remind myself of what Paul said, when he was bombarded by some thorn in his flesh which God refused to take away: “Three times I pleaded with hte Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  Therefore I will boast all the most gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 

I will say that some of the most significant points in my life, where God has moved in amazing ways, have been at my lowest points, either physically or emotionally.  It was at a very low point when I was so discouraged with us not finding a job, that I made my facebook status, “Kari is discouraged.”  Through that a friend saw it, asked why, and when I explained he emailed us about a youth pastor job, which we applied for but didn’t really feel was right for us (and we didn’t get it), and in the process of that interview, our Multnomah professor overheard that we were looking, and she emailed her son-in-law who is the Lead Pastor of Willamette Christian Church … where Jeff now serves as Associate Pastor.  I can think of countless times I’ve been so weak and helpless and discouraged, and it was in those times that God stepped in, revealing His power, His perfect power. 

So right now I’m just writing that by faith.  I’m still feeling weak and discouraged, but today as I lay in bed and cried out to God, I knew that somehow He was pleased by my weakness, that there was a desperation that must please the heart of the Father.  The same way it blesses my heart when Dutch curls up in my arms and just wants to snuggle (which only happens when he’s sick).  Perhaps it creates a bond with my Father I would miss otherwise.

Wish I had a more heroic attitude, but I’m pretty wimpy.  But this is just my best attempt to ask God for His perspective and help me to quit worrying about the future and whining about the present.  And even if sickness is sacred, please remember to take your vitamins and wash your hands!

Earlier I referred to the Sacred/Secular duality which tempts each one of us to see our lives as consisting of two unrelated spheres–one which is sacred and matters to God, and one which is secular and does not.

This morning I was reading through the Sermon on the Mount, and came across what to me is the scariest passage in the Bible: 

“Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demonds in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?”  And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart fro me, you workers of lawlessness.”  Matthew 7:21-23

This passage has always haunted me.  It’s sobering to think that there are those who will go to such an extent of compartmentalizing their lives that they are deceived into thinking that their “sacred acts” are pleasing to God, when really the vast majority of their lives was nothing but lawlessness.  Perhaps I’m misinterpreting this text, but it seems that it is duality taken to the extreme–a life spent doing “sacred things” without ever truly living for God.  A life spent looking spiritual, without truly consecrating one’s life to Christ.

Just recently I heard a horrific story.  Growing up, this person’s father would force all the children out of bed at 5am for enforced Bible reading.  They were forced to fast for long periods of time, as children.  They made their appearance in church every week.  He was Mr. Spiritual.  And then he would proceed to beat them–beat them mercilessly, and make them count their lashes out loud.  And afterward the children were forced to tell him they loved him.  It makes my eyes well up even now as I write, as I cannot imagine such a hideous abuse of authority.  This of course is an extreme case, but am I not committing the same sin, in a less degree, if I take take special care to “sacred” things and yet dishonor God in the rest of my life?

This was the very sin of the Pharisees that Jesus abhored.  In Matthew 23 Jesus rebukes them for tithing the most minute amounts of mint and dill and cumin (can you imagine tithing your groceries?!  Here’s 33 Cheerios and 4 tablespoons of milk!), but neglecting justice and mercy and faithfulness.  It is what Paul warns about in 1 Timothy 5:8 when he says, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”  What Jesus, and Paul, are saying is that our faith is only as real as it is demonstrated in the mundane things of life–working, loving, living.

Often it seems that right when I begin to teach/write about something, God tests me in it. Right now I am in a … challenging situation.  Challenging is a gentle way to put it.  It is a business situation, and frankly I would like to handle things the way the world handles things.  Countless times I have found myself thinking about the “piece of my mind” I’d like to give, or the vengeful route I could take.  And over and over God keeps reminding me that the relationship is more important than the business transaction.  That how I personally choose to handle this is, even in the secret place of my heart, is of enormous importance.  Why? Because the mundane is sacred.  Because I am worse than an unbeliever if I do mighty works in His name and yet fail to respond to others in love, meekness, humility. 

This passage in Matthew is sobering indeed.  Please, Lord, keep us from the sin of separating our lives into sacred and secular.  Keep us from straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!  Keep us from the danger of duality.