Compartment Spirituality

How many times have you heard someone say ""We should serve God first, then family, and then self""? This is a popular approach to priorities life. Yet such prioritizing may just set one up to be a very ineffective and mediocre Christian. This is so because the list approach encourages what I call compartment spirituality. Let's learn more about this significant problem for saints today.

Compartment spirituality comes about when I see life divided into segments or compartments. Over here I have my religious zone, and I try to spend some time there doing ""spiritual things,"" like worship, prayer and evangelism. Then I have my family zone or box, where I recreate and spend time with my family. Finally I have a compartment marked ""me"" where I can do as I please and have time to myself. That is a fair representation of how many arrange their lives and time, isn't it? Sunday (and maybe Wednesday night) is God's time, they try to get in some family time during the week and maybe on Saturday and then whatever is left they use for personal recreation. What could be wrong with such a system?

First, it fails to account for Christ's Lordship over all of life. Christianity is not just the lead item on a priority list that can be checked off on Sunday morning, not to be thought about again for six days. Being a disciple changes how we live all of life. Jesus rules us on the job, telling us how we work (Col. 3:23). Christ is Lord of the home (see Ephesians 5:22ff). The Lord even has somewhat to say about our civic responsibilities (see Romans 13:1ff)! In fact, there is no part of life that is not subject to Jesus Christ. Christianity is not something that is done and forgotten on Sunday. It is something that we are all week long. In other words, I serve Christ as I work on the job, as I spend time with my family, and even as I fulfill civic duties. In every place, at every time, I am a Christian. ""Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him"" (Colossians 3:17).

The second criticism of dividing life up is that it really doesn't work very well. Think about the ""God first, family second, me last"" priority system. Where does your job fit in? Where does it rate? Further, while this system may help me decide between sin and righteousness what happens when the choices are not so clear? What if the choice is between helping my daughter on her homework or going to see a sick brother in Christ? Or what do I do when Christ's commands demand I make a choice, such as His command to work and His command to love my family. He wants me to do both - how does a one, two, three system work then?

Too many Christians think the answer is to run faster, frantically scrambling between compartments trying to dump enough time and energy into each part of life. They burn out and become ineffective disciples. Note that when we see that all of life is to be lived to Christ's honor and glory the issue becomes balance, not running faster. I need to work to support my family, but I don't want to work so much I neglect them, or other areas of life. I want to be balanced. I need to do to evangelism, but again, not to the neglect of other God-given responsibilities, like work and family. You get the point. Balance comes when we demolish the compartments and do everything for Christ's glory. As a wonderful side benefit, this removes false guilt that comes from thinking I'm not doing enough ""spiritual activities"" (translation: not putting enough time in the God compartment). My whole life fits into the God compartment!

Perhaps the greatest problem with segmenting life is that it invariably leads to sin and hypocrisy. What I do in one part of my life is not connected to the spiritual part of life, so I can sin with impunity and not feel bad about it. I will just show up on Sunday and put my time in the God compartment and everything will be just fine. Such hypocrisy plagued Israel (see Malachi 1 and 2) and is clearly displeasing to God.

The habit of dividing life into parts instead of living it as a whole before the Lord is a subtle and easy mistake to make. Inevitably it tears apart our spirituality and leads to burn out, disillusionment and sin. Make certain that Colossians 3:17 is marking the entirety of your balanced life!