Sacred vs Secular
Church vs State
Supernatural vs Natural
Religious vs "Fun"
These are all terms that we've heard thrown around. Like most things, they do hold a modicum of truth, but only from a certain worldview.
From a Kingdom worldview, none of those statements should be mutually exclusive.
This last weekend I got out of the service area for a retreat with my church and went snowboarding. The snow was dry and light, as close to champagne as I've seen on the coast in a long time. All day we were riding hard, lap after lap, blower powder, laughing like school-kids whether we were nineteen or forty-nine! Slashing powder in each other's faces and falling when it went horribly wrong.
The theme for the weekend was "Renew" and part of the teaching was learning how to pause and listen -- to what God is telling you, and the people around you. I didn't do much pausing on Saturday but the revelation that hit me that evening certainly did...
We were snowboarding. We were having a lot of fun! Our joy tanks were certainly full to overflowing.
There was nothing particularly spiritual about what we were doing; except that there was. If you remove the religious preconception that worship only happens at specific times, in a building, with a band, then what we were doing was every bit worship. Not worshipping the creation or the fun, but allowing our laughter and encouragement of each other to be a fragrance blowing up to heaven.
That revelation went so far beyond being coheirs with Christ, or a new creation, or a saint, it opened my eyes to what is possible beyond those necessary revelations: when our lives are so inseparably intertwined with Holy Spirit that our every motion and joyous outburst through the day becomes intricate worship directed at the Father. A well executed line becomes a dance to the soundtrack of the snow blowing through the trees and the "whoops" of laughter under the roof of heaven.
No different than Sunday morning...
If we restrict our experiences with God to what is religiously acceptable then we will never grow beyond our small view bounded by four walls.
Here is the question I would like to propose: what would happen if we took the same principles we use to weigh out a prophetic word from someone or that "still small voice" we hear in the back of our mind, and applied them to our tangible experiences as well?
"Does this line up with Scripture?"
"Does this [experience] ring true with what I know of God?"
"Is this something that exemplifies the fruit of the Spirit?"
"Is this something that would cause someone to be drawn closer to God?"
Like any gift that our heavenly Father loves to give us, we have the choice on how we unwrap and use the gift. A guitar in the hands of one person will draw a church filled with people into the presence of God, whereas that same guitar can be used by someone to draw a stadium into completely different experience.
I snowboard. I love to snowboard, and I've been doing it for most of my life. To my detriment, not every time I've jumped on my board have I been exemplifying Jesus. It takes an effort. However, as I draw closer and closer to Jesus, the more Holy Spirit oozes out of my snowboarding, my photography, me.
My challenge is that if we're chasing after Jesus (as He chases after us) we become more like Him, and as we become more like Him the less effort we need to take for our entire day to becomes a dance in worship to a Father that designed us each to be a different part of the movement. My part is snowboarding and capturing stories and light. (more on that soon)
More often than not, the question that has been asked of me when I'm on the chairlift, or in life, is "why are you so joyful all the time?"
"Let me tell you..."
As I endeavour to be more like Jesus, I become more myself, who He has created to be. No longer is there a separation between sacred and secular; the lines blur and disappear.
What was once the sole province of the supernatural is becoming the natural, the things once considered simply secular/fun becoming not merely sacred, but normal.
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