I have been slowly reading Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell, and it is truly an excellent book. I am amazed at how much this guy knows about what is really going on in the Bible. I would definitely recommend this to everyone.
This really impacted me tonight:
"This is why it is impossible for a Christian to have a secular job. If you follow Jesus and do what you are doing in his name, then it is no longer secular work; it's sacred. You are there; God is there. The difference is our awareness."
I work at Starbucks. I make coffees, serve pastries, and take cash from customers. It's not quite as fulfilling as taking a bunch of college kids to Brazil to hang out with orphaned kids, or seeing God transform a church in Japan just because of your team's presence. But this quote really hit it home. What I am doing is sacred and I have to begin seeing it that way. It's so hard to be doing the 9-5 thing (or in most cases, for me, the 4:30-8:30 thing, and yes, that's 4:30 in the morning). YWAM has pretty much been my entire life. And it's an environment that just breathes, lives and talks God. God is always talked about, sung about, prayed to, mentioned. Here, in Colorado, I'm at home, work or college, and there's not much talking about God in either of those places. I'm having to do my own talking, singing, praying without anybody else helping, and it's really hard. I'm learning how to do it, though it's taking a long time. It helps to think that everything I do is sacred, even the mundanity of making lattes, and cleaning the condiment bar! God is there, I just need to get it in my head that He is there.
