In his chapter on the global and practical nature of calling (“Everyone, everywhere, everything” in the book "The Call"), Os Guinness highlights a distortion that occurs in our day to day lives - the chasm that occurs when we separate the holy from the daily, thereby creating a ‘double standard’ in faith. What was created was a two-tiered way of living, one way in the ‘perfect’ or holy way of life and the other in the ‘permitted’ and more mundane tasks of life. He argues that ‘sadly, this view of calling flagrantly perverted biblical teaching by narrowing the sphere of calling and excluding most Christians from its scope.”
Can I get an Amen? Not merely because we can all probably point to experiences and circumstances in which this dualism has played out in the church but because we can all probably point to situations in our own lives in which this dualism has paralyzed or frustrated us. As a parent of a two year old, when this distortion begins to take root in my relationship with him, I begin to view my role as ‘father’ taking a backseat to my role as ‘pastor.’ Giving him a bath becomes a task that delays me from ‘bathing’ in the lofty spiritual pursuit of refining my theology. And when more of the responsibilities of parenting weigh on me, I find myself sometimes feeling ‘bogged down and delayed’ rather than ‘invited’ to participate in something equally holy.
In this pursuit of ‘calling’ in ministry, I pray that God would continue to remind me and call me back to a universal way of holy living, the kind of living that finds fulfillment and purpose in living meaningfully between Play-Doh and Plato, between tricycles and in the Trinity, between reading “Once upon a Potty” and “In the Beginning, God” I fight the dualism everyday and I pray, as Guinness highlights, that I would be better off to blur the distinctions and see both as purposeful.
