Monday, April 13, 2009

One reason we divide our lives into the secular and sacred, private and public has a lot to do with our personalities. Most people live dual lives- there’s the church “pious” life and the work/ everyday (probably abusive, wild, aggressive, truant, irresponsible, dishonest) life. We put up a lovely, masked appearance (theatrics) and well acted out life for the world to admire yet our private lives are murky- we’ve got skeletons sprawled around- and dingy. Our dual lives bar us from representing who we truly are in God. We want to blend into “every” dough and mingle in every goblet of wine. On Sabbath, we dress in our best ironed out CASSOCK but we’re the sole originators (and DJs) of the wild Friday night party. We simply do not want to miss out on anything in life; we don’t want the world to describe us with the scruffy, fanatics…so we rebrand our “Jesus” to fit into our duality.
Charles Swindoll says, “I don’t see life divided into public and private, secular and sacred. It is all an open place of service before God…”I believe that we are so easily affected by societal pressure, a lot of us suffer an identity crisis so we ape the Joneses to gain man’s approval. We strive to meet up with the world’s standard hence the dual nature. The double standard or personality questions our integrity and truthfulness. Meanwhile GOD desires that everything we do- I mean everything including trading stocks, addressing customers, selling in the market, punctuality to the marketplace- brings him glory.
Today’s world instigates man’s superficiality which we see on our TV screens, billboards, shows and the like. They propagate unrealistic lives like the “bling-bling”, the labels (and designer clothing), the red carpets, name them. So we model them and celebrate men (and women) who are stunning on the red carpet but quite frankly suffer from broken marriages, drugs, sexual abuse, alcoholism, depression and extremely terrible “off the scene” afflictions. So we see a society subtly promoting dualism lest we appear too weak hence the plastic surgeries face lift and make up to hide the faults and mask the pain.
But GOD created each person a unique being and made each of us holistic (and complete) beings. Though we have loads of weaknesses, phony habits, terrible character flaws because we are not perfect, GOD sees the best in us. All the human approval is short lived because our lives are eternally responsible (and answerable) to Him- that aspect of truth no man can alter. He prefers we live simple, sincere and truthful lives no matter what men think of us. I agree that if we display our weaknesses to men- or the public- they will scorn at us and see us as failures. Most times we fear losing the approval accorded to us by men so we put up the dual life. But I strongly believe that dual living is not only hypocritical but misleading, dangerous and destructive.
I recommend that we (Christians) either stay in or out and stop playing games, and stop the theatrics- its fake! Let’s be men and women of sound doctrine, enviable character to the world and that means upholding godly integrity and uprightness in the most trivial things we engage in- obey traffic rules (avoid one-way and turning at wrong junctions created by bike men), balance our scales, treat our jobs and colleagues with passion and respect, etc. If we open our hearts to GOD’s leading, he will point out those areas we must stand out for his name’s sake even if we are regarded by the crowd as cowardly and unpopular. Let’s desist from trying to be “wanna- bee’s and “feeling among” to gain the world’s applause, let our lives be a rare fragrance. As hard as these path maybe to tread -because of the societal decadence-, GOD needs and equips willing men, die- hard people that will STAND OUT for him so choose you which nature you will wear…the DUAL or…? Be the God kind of person.