Finding Holiness

Sweat poured from my skin as I loaded the last bag into the cargo trailer attached to my car. After a relatively cool week at summer camp, I had spent the past forty minutes in ninety-plus degree heat, loading six people’s gear for our trip home.

When the final bag was loaded, I sat in the driver’s seat, exhausted, and took a long pull from my ice-cold water bottle. I cracked the windows to release the building heat, surprised and amused by the sound emanating from my speakers.

Have you ever experienced two stations competing for the same radio wavelength? My brain raced to make sense of what I was hearing. Two static-filled stations were mixing to form an odd arrangement: chanting monks and rap.

Maybe it was the week I had spent in the respite of the Bible camp, but I couldn’t help but laugh and then think about how, when we’re surrounded by the atmosphere of camp with its twice-daily chapels, counselors sitting in the morning mist doing devotionals, and campers singing worship songs loudly, it can be easy to feel like we’re standing on holy ground. But holiness finds its way into everything when we’re looking for it.

I think we tend to regard some things as filled with holiness and others as lacking it. I readily see the holiness in church buildings, nature, museums, and quiet library halls. But what about the places that don’t exude holiness at first glance? It’s harder to see the holiness in a condemned house, chemo ward, or concrete city maze. How can we find holiness in those places?

And what about people? Can we see holiness in the addict, the abuser, the rebel, the tyrant? Can we choose to see the good in those who lie, gossip, berate, and harm? Jesus did. He saw even the smallest sparks of God’s image—the imago dei—we all carry. He saw it in prostitutes, tax collectors, the oppressors and the oppressed as well as a woman’s quiet presence. He also saw holiness in everyday items like wine, bread, and a boy’s lunch.

Everything our senses touch, taste, see, hear, and smell is the result of creation being spoken into existence by God. He left his holy presence in anointed oil and in muddy puddles. Our challenge is to find holiness in unlikely places.

Slow Down

Our modern lives hum with constant activity. We barely take time to sit and eat a meal, let alone set aside time for contemplation. When we slow our pace and edit our schedules to create margin, we can experience the sacredness in each day instead of rushing through it. Examine your life. Is the pace so frenetic and the itinerary so full that you miss out on the simple pleasures of a sunset or steam swirling off a hot cup of tea? Make time and space to seek out the sacred.

Look with New Eyes

When I look at the world through my own sinful eyes, I confess it’s easier to see the pain and injustice of the world than all that is good. Sometimes I find myself asking where God is in these situations.

I think of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament as an example of someone who found hope in the dark. After being sold into slavery by his brothers, wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct, and jailed, Joseph eventually rises to second in command in Egypt. When he’s reunited with his brothers in adulthood, the brothers fear retribution.

In one of my favorite passages, Joseph forgives his brothers and says, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20 ESV). We can ask Jesus for eyes like Joseph’s to see the goodness when we feel overwhelmed by grief and despair.

Redeem What’s Broken

Our world is broken, but thanks to Jesus, it’s not beyond repair. Even now, he’s working to set things right. We can be encouraged by stories of God redeeming places and people we thought were lost. We can see these stories all around us if we take the time to look.

Father Gregory Boyle and Homeboy Industries help formerly incarcerated or gang-involved people find meaningful work as they begin a new life. Thistle Farms provides residential housing and employment to survivors of sex trafficking, where they create beautiful personal care items sold by the company. These two examples are among hundreds of other organizations established by people who have seen a vision for redemption in the lost.

When we realize God lives and moves among us, we find holiness in everything. Our crumb-laden floors see as much sacred work as we’d see in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Take a moment today to see the holiness that surrounds you in both the beautiful and the broken. Remember that God is at work in it all.

Lindsay Hufford is a writer, slow marathoner, home educator and mediocre knitter. Her favorite things include books, kombucha, kitchen dancing, natural wellness, Jesus, and nachos. She spends days with her handsome hubby, three adorable kids, a flock of hens, a runaway peahen, wandering barn cat, and rescue dog. Lindsay shares ways to live simply and love extravagantly at www.lindsayhufford.com.