Recently, I was living in London as a delegate to the Army’s International College for Officers (“ICO” in Armyspeak). All in all, it was an extremely memorable experience, spiritually, relationally, as well as culturally!
Living in any culture that’s different from your own, however, always requires some degree of getting used to. Take Americans going to England, for example… Although both countries speak the same language (more or less), you have to get used to the fact that there are words common to both cultures while having completely different meanings. These differences run the range from being innocently funny to sometimes embarrassing or potentially offensive! It takes getting used to the fact that the two countries have completely opposite ideas as to which side of the road you should drive on. Now this is no big issue if you’re a passenger in a vehicle, right? You just sit in your seat and enjoy the ride. But this “which-side-of-the-road-does-traffic-come-from" difference can be hugely life-threatening if you’re a pedestrian! I never got the hang of which way to look before crossing the street. In fact, it was nothing short of God’s grace and protection that allowed me to leave England before I became a hood ornament on a London taxi!
Let me focus on another point of English culture for just a moment. Specifically, I want to call attention to the little three word phrase that you regularly see or hear when you travel by way of the London rail system – “Mind the gap.” Those three words are prominently posted on signs as well as stenciled on the edge of train and subway (“tube”) platforms. And when the train you’ve been waiting for pulls into your station, you’ll also frequently hear a crisp, English-accented robotic voice cautioning you again to “Mind the gap, please.”
The constant written and verbal reminder is a safety thing. It’s intended to continually reinforce the point that the presence of a “gap” represents potential danger.
This truth has an application for Christians, too.
You see, unless we’re careful and intentional about such matters as how we live, what we value, what motivates us, and how we care for our souls, dangerous inconsistencies – “gaps” – can develop between what we profess and what people actually see.
Now let’s face it… There’s a long list of areas and aspects of our spiritual development that can lead us down one of the many roads to “Gap-ville.” But I’d like to focus on a particular one that many believers seem to fall into. As I said, this isn’t the only gap believers fall into, and perhaps it’s not even the widest one. But from my experience, it’s among the most popular of gaps that we seem to step into: compartmentalization.
Compartmentalization happens when a believer, instead of seeing their lif
e as a consistent, related, connected whole, views his/her life as having different sections or unrelated, independent “compartments.” They have a professional life compartment, a personal life compartment, social life compartment, and so on. Each compartment carries its own set of rules, standards, and dynamics, and allowances. And to their thinking, what happens within the sphere of one life compartment really ought to have no bearing, influence, or consequence on another.
A few years back, an officer was talking to me about his upcoming furlough. “When I go on vacation,” he said, "I’m not an officer...!”
“Really?” I answered. “So then what are you? Who are you?”
He wasn’t simply referring to the fact that for the time of his furlough he’d have a period of time where he was out from under the daily responsibilities of phone calls and assorted meetings. No, he explained to me that he would regularly live a completely different life for the period of time he was on vacation. He was making very clear the fact that he compartmentalized his life and ministry. It made me think of the old country preacher’s line, “if you ain’t who you are, you are who you ain’t!”
Now let’s be realistic…each of us have a number of roles we’re responsible to fulfill, right? But unlike a pearl necklace which is a series of independent components merely strung together, our lives are meant to be more like cut and polished diamonds, where our roles and responsibilities are nothing more than facets of the one stone which help to add beauty and uniqueness to it.
Check this out from The Message…
Living in any culture that’s different from your own, however, always requires some degree of getting used to. Take Americans going to England, for example… Although both countries speak the same language (more or less), you have to get used to the fact that there are words common to both cultures while having completely different meanings. These differences run the range from being innocently funny to sometimes embarrassing or potentially offensive! It takes getting used to the fact that the two countries have completely opposite ideas as to which side of the road you should drive on. Now this is no big issue if you’re a passenger in a vehicle, right? You just sit in your seat and enjoy the ride. But this “which-side-of-the-road-does-traffic-come-from" difference can be hugely life-threatening if you’re a pedestrian! I never got the hang of which way to look before crossing the street. In fact, it was nothing short of God’s grace and protection that allowed me to leave England before I became a hood ornament on a London taxi!
Let me focus on another point of English culture for just a moment. Specifically, I want to call attention to the little three word phrase that you regularly see or hear when you travel by way of the London rail system – “Mind the gap.” Those three words are prominently posted on signs as well as stenciled on the edge of train and subway (“tube”) platforms. And when the train you’ve been waiting for pulls into your station, you’ll also frequently hear a crisp, English-accented robotic voice cautioning you again to “Mind the gap, please.”The constant written and verbal reminder is a safety thing. It’s intended to continually reinforce the point that the presence of a “gap” represents potential danger.
This truth has an application for Christians, too.
You see, unless we’re careful and intentional about such matters as how we live, what we value, what motivates us, and how we care for our souls, dangerous inconsistencies – “gaps” – can develop between what we profess and what people actually see.
Now let’s face it… There’s a long list of areas and aspects of our spiritual development that can lead us down one of the many roads to “Gap-ville.” But I’d like to focus on a particular one that many believers seem to fall into. As I said, this isn’t the only gap believers fall into, and perhaps it’s not even the widest one. But from my experience, it’s among the most popular of gaps that we seem to step into: compartmentalization.
Compartmentalization happens when a believer, instead of seeing their lif
e as a consistent, related, connected whole, views his/her life as having different sections or unrelated, independent “compartments.” They have a professional life compartment, a personal life compartment, social life compartment, and so on. Each compartment carries its own set of rules, standards, and dynamics, and allowances. And to their thinking, what happens within the sphere of one life compartment really ought to have no bearing, influence, or consequence on another.A few years back, an officer was talking to me about his upcoming furlough. “When I go on vacation,” he said, "I’m not an officer...!”
“Really?” I answered. “So then what are you? Who are you?”
He wasn’t simply referring to the fact that for the time of his furlough he’d have a period of time where he was out from under the daily responsibilities of phone calls and assorted meetings. No, he explained to me that he would regularly live a completely different life for the period of time he was on vacation. He was making very clear the fact that he compartmentalized his life and ministry. It made me think of the old country preacher’s line, “if you ain’t who you are, you are who you ain’t!”
Now let’s be realistic…each of us have a number of roles we’re responsible to fulfill, right? But unlike a pearl necklace which is a series of independent components merely strung together, our lives are meant to be more like cut and polished diamonds, where our roles and responsibilities are nothing more than facets of the one stone which help to add beauty and uniqueness to it.
Check this out from The Message…
You're fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent.
But if you're not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent
with what you believe…then you know that you're out of line.
If the way you live isn't consistent with what you believe, then it's wrong.
Romans 14:22-23
So when you look at your life, do you see a consistent whole, or a fragmented, inconsistent, sectioned-off series of differing compartments? As believers, and especially as Salvationists, each of us would do well to persistently “mind the gap.”
Keep your altar ready and your fire hot...!
WIllis
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