Life as a Sacrament

I consider myself to be one of the moodiest people I know. My emotions can rebound in an instant, or they can stubbornly persist long beyond normal time bounds. The biggest problem is that negative emotions like frustration, irritation, and the like often (if not always) quickly evolve into much more generalized and directed attacks on self. I am hopeless, a failure, and of no purpose.

I am reminded of a Bible study I was once a part of that studied the power and pervasiveness of strongholds within one’s thoughts. We must guard our thoughts, for from these our actions originate. Anyways, I digress.

I can’t think of anything that more consistently and potently frustrates me than technological problems, when I – for the life of me – cannot figure out what I need to do on my computer, for example. Two of my closest friends and I recently visited one friend’s hometown. I promised to make a video from the pictures and videos from the trip. In fact, I promised this video at least a week or two previous. I completed the video last night, and, due to a lack of Internet on my laptop at home, I went to my favorite local coffee shop to upload the video for my two friends. I knew this would be a lengthy process, so I made sure to also pack several other projects on which I am working. After approximately two hours, the video uploader stalled, and nothing I could do would restart it. Twenty-eight minutes from complete, my video disappeared from the site. I can be a bit of a hothead, so in a word I was ticked.

This brings me to another self-revelation: I just love to wallow in self-pity. My irritation soon led to a familiar experience. I returned home and went to my room and decided that the only solution to my problem was sleep. After all, I would feel a lot better when I woke up; I always do. (Sleep is my solution to any problem akin to frustration, anger, hurt, etc.)

Now I know this is probably not the way a godly woman should resolve her problems, but all I could think was how purposeless I felt. (I already warned you; silly, minor emotions like frustration quickly escalate in my mind.) My time had been wasted, but as I was left to figure out what to do next, nothing came to mind. So, in essence I was mad that my time had been wasted on a futile task, and yet I could think of nothing better to do with my time, nothing that needed to be done instead, etc. Then I was reminded of something I read by A.W. Tozer. Freedom in Christ “opens before us the possibility of making every act of our lives contribute to the glory of God.”

“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)

Or, as The Message translates, we may do everything “heartily and freely to God’s glory.”

As Tozer writes:

“Let us think of a Christian believer in whose life the twin wonders of repentance and the new birth have been wrought. He is now living according to the will of God as he understands it from the written Word. Of such a one it may be said that every act of his life is or can be as truly sacred as prayer or baptism or the Lord’s Supper. To say this is not to bring all acts down to one dead level; it is rather to lift every act up into a living kingdom and turn the whole life into a sacrament.”

In this way, we may hope that the Lord will look with favor upon our lives and offerings as He did the life and offerings of Abel (Genesis 4:4). Paul even includes the simple and necessary acts of eating and drinking for God’s glory. What freedom to think that even these acts may glorify God! If we walk daily in this truth, then we may more fully embrace a life that is given fully to the work of the Lord, for this labor is not in vain (I Corinthians 15:58). Our daily obligations – making dinner, mowing the lawn – can glorify God.

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:17

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men. Colossians 3:23

Disclaimer: Reading back through this, I have found many more tangents and topics on which someone with more wisdom would expound and clarify and the like. However, I am hoping that those (if any) who read this will remember that I am very young, and my thoughts as yet remain incomplete.