Every now and then, I try to say or write something for the shock factor of it, to wake people up from ambivalence and make them think about something differently.
Other times, though, I say things that I don’t realize are surprising… until I see others’ faces.
This happened a couple months back. I was in a group talking about the book Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer (highly recommend, by the way!) when someone asked about whether I was talking about “the spiritual parts of my day or all of my day.” It’s a good and fair question. And over my few years of pastoring, I’ve noticed that a lot of folks think in those ways: spiritual vs. not-spiritual.
I replied something like, “Well, both. I believe everything we do is spiritual, so I think the spiritual parts of your day is all of your day.”
I could tell that many in the room found the statement “everything we do is spiritual” to be a shocking statement, though I didn’t intend for it to be.
But I deeply believe that statement, that everything we do is spiritual. Not only do I believe that’s true, but I believe that it’s important.
Here’s why: Because if everything we do is spiritual—if everything affects us on a soul-level—then everything we do matters. Therefore, God cares about everything we do.
Ever since the Enlightenment, the West has seen humans as being made of at least two parts: body and soul (many would also throw in the mind as a third part). When we are made of two different parts, then it stands to reason that some things affect our body only and some things affect our soul only. I think this is a misunderstanding of how God created us.
What I’ve realized, though, is that most Christians at least partially believe that what we do with our body affects our soul. Most theologically conservative Christians I talk to believe that who you sleep with affects not only your body, but also affects your soul. But this doesn’t seem to apply to everything… most theologically conservative Christians I talk to also believe that the news you watch only affects your mind and not your soul.
Most theologically liberal Christians I talk to believe that how you talk to another person made in the image of God affects both you and them on a soul-level. Again, though, this isn’t applied to everything… most theologically liberal Christians I talk to also believe that the music and books they consume don’t affect them on a soul-level.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Everything we do—whether gardening or watching the news or scrolling our phone or praying or serving the poor—affects our whole being on a spiritual level. Therefore, everything we do is spiritual.
However, not everything we do makes us more like Jesus.
As I said in that group, the question isn’t “Is this spiritual?” The question is “What spirit?”
Or, as my senior pastor put it the other day: “A set of hands is on the potter’s wheel. The question is: Whose hands?”
We are always being influenced on a spiritual level. Sometimes, it’s the Holy Spirit changing us. Other times, it’s the spirit of politics that’s changing us. Other times, it’s the spirit of anxiety that’s changing us. The spirit of culture. The spirit of achievement. The spirit of not-enough-ness.
And on and on and on.
What if we started to see everything we do as spiritual and then ask the question, “What spirit is shaping me?”
I think we’d be more careful about what we consume and what we do.
I think we’d start to see that watching 5 hours of news every day is making us anxious and angry. I think we’d see that we care more about how well our kids do in sports than whether they’d being shaped into the image of Jesus. I think we’d see that watching those certain videos on the internet changes the way that we see those who bear God’s image. I think we’d see that our exercise is an act of worship to our own self-image. I think we’d see that our shopping habits are self-medicating the hurts we feel that God wants to heal.
At least, that’s been my experience when I’ve started to see everything I do as spiritual. It helps me do what Practicing the Way calls “a formation audit”: an examination of how my daily, weekly, and monthly habits form me either into the image of Jesus or out of the image of Jesus. Nothing is spiritually neutral.
And once it helps us see that, then we can begin to take control of all the spiritual things we do and make sure that they’re shaping us to be like Jesus.
Maybe we’d get away from screens and around people that encourage us in our walk with Jesus. We’d help our kids practice living like Jesus more than helping them practice softball. We’d set up boundaries around our technology usage so that we can see others the way God sees them. We’d exercise as an act of worship to God. We’d be content in what we have and give more than receive.
As a Methodist, I find John Wesley’s 22 questions that he used to ask his holy club (what “discipleship bands” are modeled after) very helpful with this.
One of the questions that always strikes me is “Do I pray about the money I spend?” If I’m to see everything I do as spiritual, then even the way I spend my money needs to be brought under the Lordship of Jesus.
When I wrote this blog post, my wife and I were making a big financial decision—one of the biggest financial decisions of our life so far. More than running the numbers and trying to evaluate if it’s a good investment, we’re bringing this decision before God and asking Him how He might want to use this investment to continue to bring His Kingdom come and His will done in our neighborhood and in our lives as it is in Heaven.
It has taken me a while to get to this place where even the very money I spend is something that I see as spiritual—and I often leave that place and go back to the place where “my” money is “mine” to spend—but getting to that place has been helpful for bringing more and more of my life before God. It’s been a good, helpful, and healing process.
Everything is spiritual. The question is: Are the spiritual things you do led by the Holy Spirit or another spirit?
If you’re new to my blog, welcome! I’m glad you’re here. I’m Hunter Bethea, a follower of Jesus, husband, father, Global Methodist pastor, and curator of books I don’t have time to read. You’re welcome to learn more about me here.
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