One idea I heard once… I have not even a vague remembrance of where or when that time was or who it was I heard it from… is that we often compartmentalize our lives. In the context of the conversation it means that we divide our lives up into individual chunks. Church is one area of life. Work is another. Family life is another. School is yet another. Finances are another. Fun is another. You get the idea. There are an infinite number of ways we could compartmentalize our lives. One thing we place into a compartment is our relationship with God.
Placing God in one part of our lives is easy to do because it's what we do with everything else, but this is one of the most spiritually destructive things we can do. When we do this, we become different people in different places. It frees us up to be a lazy employee or hard-nosed employer in our job setting, while being hardworking and merciful at home. It allows people to justify acting considerately, kindly, and generously at work and church, and at the same time come home and be arrogant, self-centered, and aloof with our family. It allows us to submit to God with all of our heart and soul on Thursday morning by ourselves in a moment of prayer, but take it back Friday night at a party with drunken friends. Again, you get the idea. God is not supposed to be a part of our lives. He's supposed to be the unifying link through all of it.
We cannot allow our relationship with God to be something we turn on and off as needed. We have to let God come into our homes, our finances, our passions, our relationships, our jobs, our emotions, our grocery stores, our failures, our gyms, our successes, our coffee shops, our everywhere, our everything. God is everywhere and we need to recognize that and live accordingly. If we contain God in a compartment, we will live depraved and disappointing lives, but if we let God be all-compartment-consuming, we will live a life that is more than all we could ever ask or imagine.
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