Sometimes we get used to seeing something like clutter in a room but when someone with fresh eyes looks at that same room, they are able to point out the clutter in it. We can do the same thing with odors. We get used to that freshly painted paint smell, new car smell, or dog in the house smell.
In that same way, we can just get used to the way things have been. The way things have been done since we were young and just grew up in it. But just like that fresh set of eyes on the clutter or that first time smell of a habitual odor, when we look at something from a different perspective, it’s amazing the revelation that comes from an out of the box or an out of the norm Point of view or perspective and that is what I am sitting with regarding the word and definition of secularism.
The definition of secularism is that place or space without any religious influence. When you really allow that to resonate with you, you see the arrogance of man in it. Basically it is man saying, regardless of an omnipresent and omnipotent God, we are just going to carve out this area over here and say the creator of the universe who breathed life into us and who can also stop that same breath within us at any moment is not allowed to be mentioned or recognized in this place because of its man appointed secular designation. Obviously there are some who take this to a further degree than others like our public school system where the Bible and prayer was governmentally removed in 1963, but just the fact that the secular is even given credence is pause for concern and discussion.
Sometimes when trying to have empathy in any situation, I take that specific scenario and put it in a personal or life setting and see how one would feel. So I equated the word secular—without God being welcomed in it—to a man’s home. Since the world is God’s creation and He lives in it, a man’s house is his home and “creation” that he lives in. I extrapolated it further and thought what if someone were to just come in and ignore the homeowner of a home and do whatever they wanted in that home and never acknowledge the homeowner in the home? They ate from the refrigerator, placed their feet on the coffee table, and slept in the beds but never even acknowledged the presence of the homeowner because that home was deemed a secular home where you did not need to acknowledge the homeowner? Hmm, I wonder how that would all go? Probably not so well. But that same man (using man as universal for mankind) who wants his home to be his castle may be the first to not recognize God in His castle and creation of Earth and all of us in it.
It a different perspective isn’t it? God makes it really clear that He will not be mocked and that He doesn’t bless what He does not build. Many of us are so shocked by the atrocities in our public education and how did we ever get here but really it is a living example of what happens when the presence of God is not welcomed. Jesus said to His followers when they were sent to share the gospel in the surrounding countrysides that they were to shake off the dirt from their sandals if they were not welcomed there. God is a gentlemen and stands at the door and knocks. He doesn’t barge in and He waits for us to open the door.
Secularism is a myth and learning without seeing the awesomeness of God in and throughout it is a missed opportunity. Teaching children in a way that His loving presence is woven throughout all that they learn—seeing the awe in science, math, history, language and beyond raises a child with a fabric that is saturated and a lens that is magnified to always see Him in it instead of the vacant humanism of man.
