Active Spirituality

Scripture: Ephesians 6:10-20 If you want something in life to obtain it you actually have to do something. If you want to be a medical doctor you go to the university studying premed, then you apply to various medical schools. After that you spend several years training and gaining knowledge in the field of medicine. You saturate your life in medicine; eating, drinking, and living a life where you are surounded by the medical disipline. Medicine is not the only career that you do this with. How many of us take our cars to a mechanic that spends no time with cars? Or how many of us hope for protection from police officers that have given little time to learn the skill of law enforcement? Do we hire IT specialists that spend all their time in at the printing press? Our lives and our careers are dictated by what we invest our time and energy into. We invest our energy into the areas we are passionate about, we saturate our lives in these areas, and if we are wise our careers are in these areas. We d not assume that our future in a career will magically bestow itself upon us without any personal investment. What about our spiritual lives? How many of us assume that we will get close to God by spending one hour each week worshiping on a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? And to top it off spending that hour just sitting in a chair or pew while others perform in front of you? Do we really expect that this will foster growth spiritually and/or protect us from evil influences? Throughout my life I have read these verses as just putting on protective gear, but today I realize that the heart of it is the “putting on” part. Our spiritual lives are to be active, we must put and participate in our spiritual growth. Just as a doctor must participate in the growth of medical knowledge. There are different aspects of spiritual disipline that affect different aspects of our spiritual life. Shoe, breastplates, halmets, and belts all have different purposes. It is like physical fitness, we do pushups to strengthen certain muscles, sit ups for other muscles. No one would honestly expect sit ups to stregthen their legs, but their abs. (I speak of this as if I know anything of personal training while I contemplate eating at McDonalds before or after watching a movie.) But the point is that to physically stregthen the body we must actively engage our bodies, training each muscle group in their own way to get the desired results. How well do we do engaging rightousness, truth, salvation, peace, and the Word? Do we put them on actively or expect them to magically appear? How do we actively participate in our spiritual growth while still engaging in the passions of our careers? It is possible. Just today I watched a program exploring the human genome and the ability of the human body to ward off HIV. It was facinating and as I engaged my mind in scientific exploration I also praised God in the quest of truth. Put on the armor, clothe yourself in the spiritual. Actively participate in you journey to and with God, and enjoy the results.