Living life is always an intriguing topic. We can have Christian conversation on how to live your life, how to make Godly decisions, how to serve, where to serve, asking am I called into the ministry, or am I called into a blue collar position down at the GM factory. There are so many factors to think and pray about when living and planning day to day rigmarole. I personally can’t help but look back in history through the Bible, and ponder the lifestyle choices of the prophets, Israelites, David, Solomon, Nehemiah, Isaiah, the 12 disciples, Paul, and primarily Jesus. Do I want to live an ordinary everyday life with a job that I can tolerate for as long as God gives my body strength? Or, do I want to live a life fully trusting, fully serving, desiring more, and sacrificing everything for the glory of God?
Now let me explain what I mean by living fully for God. This doesn’t mean that I live foolishly and expect that God will supply my every need. This doesn’t mean that I sit on the couch and watch 2 hours of TV faithfully every night. This doesn’t mean that I sit on my hands with no motion or spiritual fruit and pray that God will open up miraculous doors. However, God can do whatever He wants whenever He wants. I’m simply stating that I practice living an intentional life in Christ. By intentional, I am simply stating that my family avoids things that will distract from God’s work in our lives. For example, I was talking with one of our teens about video games and TV, (I love video games and TV) and he suggests that I get an Xbox. I explained to him that we don’t have cable or an Xbox, because it would be a huge distraction in our worship ministry. I believe that if we did have those things, we wouldn’t be where we are at today.
My brain may be analyzing this slightly different from other people, but to me, my intentional walk with Christ lines up with Dan’s “living an elemental life.” Dan explains the elemental life as four different categories. The first category that Dan talks of is earth. Earth is broken down into the grounded life or characteristics of you. This goes into detail on things that move us, and us not moving them. We stand on these things. The second category is wind. Dan classifies this as the inspired life. The inspired life goes into the area of “what happens when we throw our sail out.” Fire is the third category in the elemental life, and it is described as the empowered life. Living the empowered life would mean that we draw on a power not of ourselves. Finally, the last category would be water. Water would entail a communal life of nurturing authentic friendships and the need for voices around you to speak into your life.
In the video “A Grounded Life”, Dan takes time to break down the Earth category even more, but for me it was really good to look at each four steps and individually plug them into my life right now. It helps see where we are going, what we are doing right, what we are doing wrong, and provides clarity on this unusual lifestyle of the worship ministry.
Joseph H Toft II