Whole-Life Discipleship
When we offer our ordinary lives to God, we become his cooperative friends.
Does a busy God, who has his own agenda supervising the whole cosmos, know or care about our unexceptional days? Alarm clocks, diapers, arguments, traffic, politics, accidents, exhaustion—what is spiritual about any of these ordinary things?
Our ordinary human lives are the only ones we’ve got. They are the only ones through which we can live into Paul’s vision:
Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.
Romans 12:1
Body in this verse refers to the whole person (heart, soul, will, mind, emotions) expressed through bodily power as “the vehicle—the instrument—that implements the desires and choices of the redeemed spirit” (Expositors Bible Commentary).
The Message captures the essence of this text:
Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Everyday and ordinary are terms that alert us to the notion that discipleship and mission are not things we add to our already over-busy lives. Eugene Peterson, in his classic book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, makes this concrete:
The only opportunity you will ever have to live by faith is in the circumstances you are provided this very day: this house you live in, this family you find yourself in, this job you have been given, the weather conditions that prevail at the moment.
But what about when life disappoints us? What about when we’re discouraged from unanswered prayer and the shattered faith of unmet expectations? At times, we lapse back into sin. Relationships fail. Unfair criticism gashes our soul.
Sometimes it seems like we “stink at life.”
God is unsurprised by any of it.
The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
Matthew 26:41
Jesus spoke those words when he found his disciples, his supposed prayer partners, asleep in his time of need. Peterson is characteristically brilliant on this passage:
Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.
Even when life stinks, we must apply Jesus’ command to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). We must offer our actual life to God within its calendar and relationships; its ups and downs; its named people and tough moments. Such real-life, love-based cooperation is what Jesus was looking for in his sleeping friends.
The primary vision for following Jesus is this:
Offering Our Whole Life for an Entire Life
You might say, “But how will I ever make progress?” Well, artists and doctors are good models for us. They have a practice; they habitually exercise their craft; they apply specific disciplines to improve their skill. They are never perfect—but, wow, where would the world be without them?
No matter what your vocation, you can make slow and steady progress. I have two suggestions:
Learn to practice the presence of God moment by moment. This is core to your spiritual formation.
Look for divine appointments in the moments of your life. This is the key to unfeigned, unhurried mission as the cooperative friends of God.
Our embodied life in this fallen world will always be challenging and mundane. But as Jesus and Paul encourage us, we can daily offer our everyday, ordinary life to God as an act of worship.