Compartmentalizing

Jesus urged his disciples, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33) As 21st century Americans, we typically read this verse, “Be sure to make God your first priority and everything else will fall into place.”

But “seeking first his kingdom” has nothing to do with priorities. God does not want to be a priority among priorities! He is the I AM, the Alpha and Omega. “I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:6) Instead, “seeking first his kingdom” has to do with singleness of heart. 

Many of us fail at cultivating singleness of heart because we compartmentalize our lives. We have our family lives; our work lives; our social lives; our recreational lives; and our spiritual lives or God-time. We neatly segregate these various areas of our lives into compartments like a super-organized California Closet.

We’re so used to living this compartmentalized life that we’re seldom conscious of its existence. Though if we stand back and look, it’s easy to recognize the different compartments we’ve created in our lives. As Christians, we’ve unwittingly promoted compartmentalizing by our mantra: God first, family second, job next, and so on.

Compartmentalizing is living a lie, because we also delude ourselves into thinking that if we behave ourselves and “pretty-up” one or more of our compartments, that what we do in the other compartments is irrelevant. This delusion prevents us from recognizing that all areas of our lives are interconnected and fully integrated and that to be morally bankrupt in one compartment is to be morally bankrupt in all of life.

Compartmentalizing is an artificial and deceptive approach to living. Compartmentalizing may be a great way to organize a closet, but it’s a lousy way to live our lives! When we invite Jesus Christ to be our Leader, he wants to remove our compartments. 

God doesn’t want to be our first priority. He wants to be the “I AM” in our lives.  He wants us to love, desire, and delight in him with singleness of heart. And as we do, “all these things will be given to us as well.”  (Matthew 6:33)

©2009 Rob Fischer