1 + 1 = 1

Once we step over the line and enter, “The Christian” world, we are bombarded with a litany of things we should do to increase or spiritual formation. Good things, things that no self-respecting follower of Christ would argue with. Bible reading, prayer, quiet time, and the list goes on. Things, that when done in a quantitative amount, add value to our lives. In fact, they don’t just add value to our lives, they actually form our spiritual nature.
In Genesis we see man being created. God formed him from the dust of the ground, and then He blew breathe into his nostrils. Amazing huh? The Hebrew word that is used for the whole ‘breath’ thing is the word that is also used for spirit. Man is the only thing that is both physical and spiritual. That’s something Angels can’t even boast.
Trees, ferns, dogs, and badgers are physical. None of these things were created spiritual, only physical. Angels on the other hand are spiritual beings. They have no bodies, and were not ‘formed’ by God. Man is the only one that is both physical and spiritual. We are the great dichotomy of God’s hand. This is why we read in scripture that when we all get resurrected in that last hour that we will get heavenly bodies. Bodies are not bad. They are part of who we will forever be.
For us, you can’t separate the spiritual and the physical, but that is exactly what we try and do daily as followers of Christ. We focus on the pillars of our Christian walk: daily bible reading, prayer, quiet time, etc. these spiritual pursuits are pushed up the scale of importance while leaving the “less important” things behind. We separate our spiritual pursuits, from our physical pursuits.
You cannot separate the physical from the spiritual. How we drive, treat our neighbor, play with our kids, and interact with our wife, are all extremely spiritual things. You cannot somehow draw a line and separate the spiritual from the physical. We are an amalgam of both. In those times when I’m angry, how I treat my wife and children are a much better litmus test for my spiritual formation than if read my bible that day.
Hopefully your mind is reeling right now applying this principle to your life. It would change everything. The bible tells us that the world is full of God (Psalm 24:1). You can’t separate it. How we dress, talk, act, interact, play, laugh, cry, and fight are all spiritual things. Spiritual things are interwoven in our lives with the physical, and whether you want to admit it or not, deep down you ‘feel’ that it’s true.
What do you call someone who reads there bible everyday, but gossips? Yup, you guessed it, we call them a hypocrite. Why? Easy. Because, that person has attempted to divorce the spiritual from the physical. We quickly call them a hypocrite because we really don’t know how else to respond. It could be that they just need to allow more of a proper spiritual formation to happen in their lives. A formation, that encompasses more than merely a laundry list of ‘spiritual’ deeds.
As we step into this ‘spiritual’ life, it’s not that we need to take up a whole new list of things to do. It is more like we need to just do all the things in our lives differently. Not making God a Sunday thing, but making Him a ‘life’ thing. It’s kind of humorous in a way when you think about it. Here we are, the created product of the uncreated-one, and we, in our infinitesimal thinking, want to take the cosmic God and isolate him to Sunday mornings (or crisis moments, because we all need God in the crisis times right?).
God is not just in the ‘spiritual things. He’s in the physical things. He is in everything. We can’t separate the two, but we do need to live out of the two. Recognizing that our spiritual walk is identical to our physical walk. If our physical walk doesn’t line up with our spiritual walk then we have no spiritual walk to begin with.