Applying Christianity in your daily life

gramlab

Since most of the posters in this forum are comitted christians I am wondering how you apply (even if not conciously) your faith to everyday situations. Basically how often do you think about God each day, do some normal everyday events trigger your faith more than others i.e. getting out of bed, driving to work, getting stuck in traffic, disagreement with a work colleague, seeing a couple argue etc.

Does the word of God, scripture etc pop into your head,do you view certain situations from a viewpoint influenced by your faith and so on, or do you think about it at all? Essentially I'm wondering if anyone thinks the normal thought processes of a christian versus an athiest/agnostic in everyday life are different due to your belief.

Hope you get the jist of this post because I'm not sure I would;)

wolfsbane

gramlab said:

Since most of the posters in this forum are comitted christians I am wondering how you apply (even if not conciously) your faith to everyday situations. Basically how often do you think about God each day, do some normal everyday events trigger your faith more than others i.e. getting out of bed, driving to work, getting stuck in traffic, disagreement with a work colleague, seeing a couple argue etc.

Does the word of God, scripture etc pop into your head,do you view certain situations from a viewpoint influenced by your faith and so on, or do you think about it at all? Essentially I'm wondering if anyone thinks the normal thought processes of a christian versus an athiest/agnostic in everyday life are different due to your belief.

Hope you get the jist of this post because I'm not sure I would

An excellent post. I hope I understand it, so here goes;
how often do you think about God each day?
Usually in the range of several times an hour (excluding prayer, when I'm mostly engaged with God). So 24-8 (sleep - but I think of Him often then too) = 16. Say 3 thoughts per hour, = 48, with extra for the prayer-time included in the 16 hours giving a rough figure of 70 times a day. Consciously.

do some normal everyday events trigger your faith more than others i.e. getting out of bed, driving to work, getting stuck in traffic, disagreement with a work colleague, seeing a couple argue etc?
Yes, anything that requires more than formal respones makes me seek special help of God to do it right: disagreements, interventions, dangers, etc.

Does the word of God, scripture etc pop into your head, do you view certain situations from a viewpoint influenced by your faith and so on, or do you think about it at all?
Often. As a response to good and bad things, beauty, squalour, etc. All call to mind what god has said about them, how to respond to them, what to learn from them, etc.

Essentially I'm wondering if anyone thinks the normal thought processes of a christian versus an athiest/agnostic in everyday life are different due to your belief.
I can only think back to my life as an unbeliever, and I remember thinking sometimes about the right or wrong of some situations, how to respond, etc. But mostly it was how to get the most out of a circumstance without suffering for it. I certainly did not spend 10% of the time I do now on the morality aspects.

gramlab

wolfsbane wrote: »

An excellent post.

Seems not by the amount of replies:rolleyes:

I was just curious to find out if a Christian/religious person views everyday mundane things differently because of their faith

Fanny Cradock

It's a good post, but I think real life just gets in the way Boards often takes a back seat!

Anyway, your question does seem to be better suited to those who at one time weren't Christians (be they Muslims, agnostics or whatever) but now are.

Yes, I would think about God often in each day. How many time this would be I can't say. For the sake of argument we'll agree that there is such a thing called a normal thought process. In this regard I would imagine that a devout Christian would think and approach certain situations in a different manner than a non_Christian. To what degree would depend on the situation at hand and on their strength of faith. Too often I find myself failing to live up to my expectations of what a Christian should do and be.

PDN

gramlab wrote: »

Since most of the posters in this forum are comitted christians

Such as Wicknight, Robin, Akrasia, Mr pudding, Depeche Mode?

Basically how often do you think about God each day

In my working day, all the time. Which is a bit like asking a history teacher how often he thinks about history in a day. But I guess my job makes a difference in this.

Outside of work, I would say I still think about God a lot. For example, today I was discussing the family finances with my wife and then talking with my daughter about post-grad study options. In both cases we said, "What does God want us to do in this situation?" but then those are fairly big issues. If I'm watching a footie match on the TV then I probably don't think about God at all for 90 minutes. But if I go to an Eircom League match there will be a bunch of us from church so we still end up talking about God at half time.

do some normal everyday events trigger your faith more than others i.e. getting out of bed, driving to work, getting stuck in traffic, disagreement with a work colleague, seeing a couple argue etc.

Those things with a moral component, like forgiveness, trigger faith. Mechanical stuff like opening a carton of milk doesn't.

Does the word of God, scripture etc pop into your head,do you view certain situations from a viewpoint influenced by your faith and so on, or do you think about it at all?

Yes, I find Scripture comes to mind a lot.

Essentially I'm wondering if anyone thinks the normal thought processes of a christian versus an athiest/agnostic in everyday life are different due to your belief.

My experience is that my Christianity has changed my thought processes big time.

gramlab

PDN wrote: »

But if I go to an Eircom League match there will be a bunch of us from church so we still end up talking about God at half time.

Do your prayers for the right result get answered?

PDN

gramlab wrote: »

Do your prayers for the right result get answered?

Last season they apparently were, but this season is not going so well.

Seriously, if I thought God would rig the result of a footie game in response to prayer then I would never watch another game again in my life.

kelly1

gramlab wrote: »

Since most of the posters in this forum are comitted christians I am wondering how you apply (even if not conciously) your faith to everyday situations.

I use my knowledge of good and evil to guide me in decisions that I make during the day. I got this knowledge from scripture (10 commandments, the beatitudes) and from the teachings of the Church e.g. the wrongness of contraception or masturbation.

gramlab wrote: »

Basically how often do you think about God each day, do some normal everyday events trigger your faith more than others i.e. getting out of bed, driving to work, getting stuck in traffic, disagreement with a work colleague, seeing a couple argue etc.

Changes from day to day. Depends probably on how close if feel to God. Apart from prayer morning, noon and evening, lots of things remind me of God e.g. the beauty of nature or the kindness of a friend/colleague/stranger. Even news of violence somewhere in the world reminds me to ask God for mercy upon us.

gramlab wrote: »

Does the word of God, scripture etc pop into your head,do you view certain situations from a viewpoint influenced by your faith and so on, or do you think about it at all? Essentially I'm wondering if anyone thinks the normal thought processes of a christian versus an athiest/agnostic in everyday life are different due to your belief.

Yes I often think about scripture when I sin. e.g. I might "eyeball" a good looking woman and think about what Jesus said about lust being the equivalent of adultery or I maybe I might be uncharitable towards someone and be reminded that we "cannot love God if we don't love our neighbour" etc. Scripture often comes to mind to guide me when I "fall".

This might be digressing somewhat but basically I think life presents a series of situations in which we have choices to make. E.g. when tempted to sin, I can either consent or refuse to commit the sin. When angry, I can either express my anger in a damaging way or practice self-control. Every moment is an oppurtunity to grown spiritually.

When we consent to sin, we block God's grace and this makes us weak. When we become weak, we are more likely to sin and if we don't repent we find ourselves further down the slippery slope. The further down this slope we go, the harder it is to climb back up. At this point, only God's grace can bring us back from the abyss.

So basically Chrisian living should be about love. We should respond to inspirations from the Holy Spirit with a focus on doing God's will. When we put our will before God's, that's when things start to go wrong. If we focus on love of God and neighbour, we won't go too far wrong. When we focus on self, we're doomed.