When God has a British accent...

I watched a documentary about a man who serves as butler of a grand castle in England. 

Everyday for twenty years, he has set out the breakfast china for the Earl and his family, carefully measuring out the distance between every dish, glass, and utensil.

The camera panned in for a close up of him carefully polishing a spoon before setting it on the fine linen covered table and then reaching to straighten the center floral arrangement.

His voice was calm and refined as he said, "It's very important to maintain standards because once they disappear, they will never come back"

Sometimes God speaks in a still, small voice and other times I hear Him speak through His Word, but today, God used an English butler to convict me.

What the ear hears and the eyes see are seldom forgotten. And in today's society, we are bombarded with the noise and clatter of the world.

A world where innocence and standards are vilified as stuffy, unnecessary, and confining.

Where those who chose to keep their minds guarded and hearts pure are regarded as old fashioned and delusional.

It seems that even within the church, we no longer measure our standards by the word of God, but have bent and bowed to the world's example, so far so that I fear we might break altogether.

And by repeating the world's mantras, we Christians have made excuses for the low standards within our own lives. 

Boys will be boys. It's just the current fashion. Everyone goes through a "wild" time. Young people will experiment. The Bible doesn't say I can't. It doesn't affect my walk with the Lord. But I love him/her.

I have been guilty of it, too.

And I wonder if God doesn't ache when He sees His children compromising so much of their integrity and lowering the bar and their expectations.

And I see it in my own life. I've been one who has made excuses and claimed that what I watch, read, and hear won't really affect me. That saying this, laughing at that, going there, having a relationship with them doesn't change anything, really.

But it does. And like that wise, old butler, I am realizing that once my bar of standards has lowered, it is very hard to raise them again.

I can still hear her voice in my head whenever I step out my front door, just as I audibly did every time I'd leave the house when I was growing up.

 "Remember who you are. Remember Whose you are."

My mother knew that sometimes a young kid needed reminding-- reminding that my life was a living testimony for the world, yes, but more importantly, my heart was His home, my body His temple. And when I would allow myself to compromise my standards, it was harder to keep my soul in a place of peace and to keep my heart fertile ground for spiritual growth. 

Keeping our standards high is not how the world will know that we are Christ followers--no, they will know us by our love. Too often we confuse that--thinking that by living the right way, dressing the right way, doing the right thing is how we show that we are Christians. 

I have realized that these standards, morals, boundaries--they are not for the world's benefit but our own.

Out of our love for the Father, we desire to come before Him with clean hands and a pure heart. We desire to draw near to the purest place where He is, and that is much easier to do when our hearts are not swayed by anything that could draw us away from Him.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Romans 12:2

It appears that God, sometimes, has a British accent.