Wisdom 5 What's in Your Wallet?

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 5 What’s in Your Wallet?

 You know that credit card question on TV. If we carry our IPFL card, that basic spiritual identity card, our mission and ministry define our secular roles as we encounter the world, one person, one situation and one event at a time.

 Take our jobs for instance. Say I’m a forest ranger. That’s my professional identity (the following is not an accurate description, it’s just based on my observation). My purpose is contained in a job description which is to maintain human order in the section of the forest to which I have been appointed. My function is to patrol a domain to preserve its nature and service to the outside world. Also, to do as much as possible to protect everything within its boundaries. I am in a uniformed body that identifies who I am, why I’m there, what I do and how I can serve both my forest section and serve the people who come within it.

 Apply the above to any profession, any structure that provides employment. Apply it to our family roles, marriage partners, parents, friendships, team activities, coaching, club memberships, educational tasks, engineering, scientific pursuits plus whatever. The four-dimensional approach is present in all. The point here is that if everything is approached spiritually it brings perspective of wisdom into the mix. The choices we make, the decisions they imply and the actual motivation to get it done, if they are spiritually influenced they have a whole lot better chance of succeeding at being properly done and a sense of achievement accomplished.

 Something else takes place in the process. We discover that we have a passion for what we do. The drive behind our secular tasks encourage us to go above and beyond the job description.   We look for better way to get a job done. We look for better ways to communicate. We find we are more patient with those who are problematic. We encourage our colleagues. We look for more efficient ways to function. We are creative, enthusiastic and the clock no longer governs my time at the job. I like what I do and enjoy the people I meet and work with.

 A spiritual context places everything secular as a temporary opportunity to serve God, to find those who need the Lord and witness to them. The purpose there is that they too will find the energizing relationship with Jesus that gives them a sense of eternal purpose not just temporary survival. The driving principle here is how we yield to the Cross of Christ. The whole choice and decision process from the beginning is led by the Holy Spirit who conforms us to the person of Jesus while we sort out the right from the wrong and seek in Him a better way to move into every next moment. This is the substance, the heart and the soul of God’s wisdom He shares with us through our faith in Jesus. This is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit at work in each of us. The whole process is spiritual at its base. IF it isn’t, then we have only one conclusion. It will be lived in fear of what others think and feel. That is a minefield we will never successfully cross.

 The cross that really awaits is the one we take up called faith in Jesus for every next moment. This is the essence of true wisdom, the gift of the Holy Spirit’s work in us when we make our moves with Him in mind. This is real freedom, freedom in the Spirit. True freedom is knowing the difference between what is spiritually right, faith in Jesus, and what is spiritually wrong, self-centered sin and the devil’s temptations. Now we’re talking wisdom. What’s in your wallet?