The Sacred/Secular Illusion

AW Tozer, my favorite extra-biblical author, penned the jewel chapter entitled “The Sacrament of Living” in his gold-mine book, The Pursuit of God, a humble 120 pages written on a single train ride.  In this chapter he exposes this lie that we have been discussing, the Sacred/Secular Illusion.  We tend to believe that life is composed of two compartments, the sacred and the secular.  Those who work outside the church are said to have “secular jobs”.  My alma mater would be considered a “secular university”.  We categorize things like prayer, going to church, singing worship songs, and reading our Bibles as Sacred activities, of which we know God is pleased. And yet if we are honest with ourselves, these activities take up a small portion of our lives.  The overwhelming majority of our time is spent working, sleeping, eating, driving, grooming, entertaining, etc.  Even today, on a Sunday, as a pastor’s wife (a supposedly sacred vocation), I spent probably one hour tops in prayer and Bible reading and 1.5 hours at church.  The rest of my day has consisted of showering and getting presentable, making breakfast, feeding, changing, and dressing Dutch, driving to and from church, getting gas, buying bananas at the store, making lunch, eating lunch, reading aloud the entire Treasury of Curious George from cover to cover (192 pages complete with voice impersonations and onomonopia!), putting Dutch down for a nap, paying bills, cleaning the kitchen, putting chicken in the crockpot for dinner…you get the idea.  Of the nine hours I’ve spent awake, only 2.5 of those have been spent doing so-called sacred activities. 

You see my point, and perhaps I’ve belabored it.  We live in the mundane, and to believe that mundane equals secular is to believe that 90% of our life is outside the living, active presence of God.  It’s to believe that most of our life, really, doesn’t matter. 

As we continue to explore this topic, we will see, from Scripture and from the general revelation of God in this world, that all of life is Sacred.  That the mundane is sacred.  That there is a reality more real that that which we see, and that by the grace of God, we can live with spiritual eyes and ears, focused intently, aware of the presence of God in the details of life.  And perhaps we can increase, by minute degrees each day, the portion of our lives that is actively involved in the most thrilling pursuit of life–the pursuit of our great and glorious God.