Epiphany

from here

Not too long ago, a chaplain friend asked a stack of people to help her answer some questions she’d been asked by year 6 kids at her school, and I did some proofreading of the final booklet. Part of my husband's response to the question, “God, why don't you come down to earth to visit us?”, was this:

Some people like to think of the world as having an upstairs and a downstairs. They think that God lives up top, we live down the bottom, and mostly we keep to ourselves. But that's not the way that the Bible sees things. The Bible tells us that God is always here! When a baby is born God is there. When people gather together God is there with them. When we stand up or when we sit down God knows about it. God is part of every bit of our lives! He knows the tiniest details like the number of hairs on our heads.

I was surprised by how many of the answers challenged me to think through my own beliefs; year 6 kids ask hard questions! I agree with my husband's response in theory, although in practice I think I’m guilty of splitting the world in two. I know I’ve often (sometimes uncomfortably) assumed that it was right to elevate ministry positions to God’s ‘upstairs’, forgetting that “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Psalm 24:1) and there’s only one storey in this very big house. But what he wrote means that a minister is no more Christian than a Christian dentist or train driver, and God is no less present in the days of a cleaner or an engineer than He is with an MTSer or a missionary.

It was suggested to me recently that perhaps sacrificing me-stuff in order to let my husband pursue him-stuff was easier for me because he was in ministry. I disagreed then for non-theological reasons, but that conversation was the first thing I thought of while processing my husband’s answer. If it is easier for me to give up time for my husband’s sake, it’s not because he’s doing special God stuff which therefore trumps anything downstairsy I’d potentially be interested in doing. Our lives are equally God-filled, even though he spends his days studying theology and I spend mine finding new and exciting ways to say “No” to my defiant toddler. And if a day comes when we sense I’m being called to wax legs or start my Moody Groovers classes, my husband’s sacrifice to make time for me will be no bigger than mine has been for him.

This is currently making my brain explode.