I have been summarizing Petersen's book on "The Insider" which encourages us to see our primary ministry and calling in the fields where we live our lives each day: at work, in the supermarkets, with friends, etc.
I have also been seeking to live more intentionally, each day, in God's presence-- more conscious of His ever-presence. It seems to me that these two thoughts can be powerfully weaved together. Our calling, our life, and our spiritual life are all meant to be lived as one integrated whole. We don't "do" church and then "do" work. We don't "do" the spiritual and then "do" the non-spiritual. We are Christians because we are living with and in Christ, all the time, every moment of every day. The fact that we lose awareness of this is because of our own splintered and compartmentalized thinking.
Carl Arice, in "The Taste of Silence," describes this well:
The spiritual journey is life, the events of everyday life...Is it not possible that instead of finding God in all things we divide the world into compartments? We say, "Now I'm going to do something holy--say my prayers." Then, afterwards, "Now I turn my attention to survival needs: paying bills, administrivia, and all sorts of other things. I hurry through them so I can go back and be with God and do God's work." This is a bad split of God's world. Do you remember the catechism question, "Where is God?"-- where we answered with great gusto, "God is everywhere." So why don't we really believe that? All of reality is saturated with the presence and power of God. Everything we do is a potential playing field for prayer.
What a goal-- to integrate my delight and joy in God with everyday life. To see God in the mundane, in each relationship, and in every event. To be aware of His activity. To rest from my own. To point others to God not out of some duty but because I am living, in the moment, in contact with Him and therefore His reality is naturally flowing out of my perceptions and thoughts.
