“ Sacred spaces are the moments that invite you to do the God-ordained work only you can do.”
dissatisfied living in the shallows. Sacred spaces disrupt our ability to stay ankle-deep when there is a deeply gratifying life waiting to wash over us.
I have always viewed the job I do to earn a living as my secular work. My job was the labor I did to have some type of enjoyable existence when the work was done. As a medical professional, it was easy to see the value in helping people get healthier, but I viewed it as transactional not transformational. Doctoring was temporal work with no significant effect on the eternal and no connection to the spiritual. I approached it as a career and not a calling. That mindset kept me locked in discontentment for so long, I stopped looking for a way to escape. I settled into the belief that I was not one of the chosen few called to do sacred work. I mistakenly believed that I had to choose between the sacred and the secular. Ministry or medicine? I could do one or the other, but not both.
“ Sacred spaces are the moments that invite you to do the God-ordained work only you can do.”
This seeming division caused a tug-of-war in my heart. A fierce battle between a cultural paradigm and a simple spiritual principle that tells me whatever work I do should be done as if I were working for the Lord( Col.
3:23 – 24). The division I had created in my mind was not from the Lord. Sacred work is not reserved for those in vocational ministry such as pastors and missionaries. The work they do is sacred, but full-time ministry is only one type of sacred work. The belief that only ministers and missionaries are called to do spiritual work has left a vacancy of Spiritled laborers in many fields that need their presence, their influence, and their gifts.
What would happen if you integrated your faith into every sphere of your life— relationships, job, hobbies, finances, health? What would happen if God was able to move freely in the different fields where you have influence— in business, government, education, entertainment, health care, churches, and in your home? The Lord invites you to tear down the walls between the sacred and secular. Welcome Him into it all. Remove the boundaries you’ ve created in your mind regarding what qualifies as“ spiritual work” and consider that it is all spiritual work. Resist the temptation to predetermine where God will move next.
Sacred Work
I am not a fan of the term work-life balance. We act as if life and work are two antagonistic forces. One pulling us up and the other pulling us down. In our attempt to not be pulled in two, we have tried to balance these forces, a task that is futile because they were never
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