How well do you compartmentalize?
I’ve always admired people who could keep their work life at work and their home life at home. I always felt like their self control was far superior to mine. I struggle with not letting my mood trickle out into the expressions on my face. I’ve worked hard at not letting a bad moment bleed over into the rest of my day.
A few years ago, I met a highly successful businessman who made me rethink the benefits of being able to compartmentalize. From a distance, he seemed to have it all together. He owned a successful business that nicely provided for his family. He donated to charities of his choice and he single-handedly kept a struggling church afloat with his financial support. One day I was sitting in a meeting with him and I listened to him make comments like, “You’ll always find a few dead bodies along the road to success.” and “To protect your spouse, if you cheat on them you shouldn’t tell them.” He spoke vulgarly about other business people who had come up against him. In that meeting, I realized he was not only compartmentalizing his life, he was also compartmentalizing Jesus.
In Philippians 2:3, Paul is reminding the people of Philippi when it is acceptable to compartmentalize their faith. Paul writes:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.
Many of us have heard a Sunday sermon referencing this verse when talking about the problems with selfishness, vanity, and conceit. But as I read this verse there is one word that stands out.
It is the word nothing.
Nothing.
The word nothing gives me no wiggle room for compartmentalizing.
Paul didn’t say don’t be selfish in your home life, but it’s ok when you are growing a business. He didn’t say don’t be conceited around kind, loveable people, but it’s ok if someone is trying to take advantage of you or has harmed you. Paul didn’t add an exception clause anywhere in this verse. He definitively wrote IN NOTHING. He is reminding us there is no place or compartment in our lives that has room for behaviors that do not glorify God.
Unfortunately, the world highly encourages selfishness and personal gain. The world even celebrates it. In today’s world, we admire people who ruthlessly fight to get ahead. And like me, we might even strive to get better at the skills, like compartmentalizing, that create this type of success.
But Paul discourages the compartmentalization of our faith. He makes it very simple. He reminds us there is no place for us to be selfish, conceited, prideful, or self absorbed.
He doesn’t say we can’t be successful. He doesn’t say we can’t fight for the underdog. He doesn’t say we shouldn’t do better, be better, or continue to grow and improve. Paul says there is absolutely no place in our lives we should be motivated by personal gain or self-glorifying efforts.
This is particularly important for parents because our children need to see Jesus freely moving throughout all places of our lives. When they see us at work, we want them to say, “Oh look, there He is!” When they see us interacting with people working in the service industry, we want them to say, “ I see Him there, too.” When they see us interacting with our spouse, we want them to see Jesus plunked right in the middle of our marriage.
So, this week, let’s take an inventory of the compartmentalized areas we are keeping away from God. Let’s intentionally open those doors to the areas we have previously kept off-limits to Jesus allowing him to freely walk in.
And if you are like me, instead of trying to get better at compartmentalizing, let’s shift our focus to making sure all the compartment doors in our lives are wide open for Jesus. Keeping all our doors open to Jesus will allow us to glorify God in every area of our life, and in an unexpected plot twist, the wide open doors eliminate our need to compartmentalize.
God thank you for continuously pursuing us in all areas of our lives, particularly in the areas we have marked with “Closed,” “Off Limits,” or “Under Construction” signs. Thank you for your tireless desire to stay involved even when we choose to mark you absent. We ask that you help us clearly see the areas we need to intentionally invite you in, and if we struggle with opening these doors, we ask that your mighty will overpowers our strong wills 100% of the time. We lift this all up in the name of your precious son, Jesus Christ.