When I was at school, one of the desserts served was rice pudding, served with a dollop of strawberry jam:
Most children mixed the jam into the rice pudding and ate the subsequent pink dessert which they dubbed the ‘pink panther.’ The jam sweetened the pudding and changed its colouring completely.
Nowadays, I eat porridge for breakfast, usually with raspberries. Garry treats this breakfast like the children at school treated the rice pudding: he crushes the raspberries and eats a pink gloop for breakfast. I eat a spoonful of porridge with an individual raspberry.
I suspect that the pink panther approach works better in life, however, than my method, for (as Rick Warren says) ‘a life of integrity is one that is not divided into compartments.’
We think that the life works well when it’s divided into compartments (work, home, church, God, money, leisure, friends and so on.) It doesn’t. Life is messy; each area spills into another and can’t be divided up neatly. One area overflows into another and it actually becomes dangerous to try to keep these compartments separate, for it leads to fragmentation and disharmony.
Matt Redman’s song ‘King of My Soul’ has the line ‘so let my life be undivided, God.’ Jesus reminded us that we need to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love others as ourselves. (Matt 22:37-38) Only when there is integrity within, the ‘undivided heart‘ for which David prayed (Ps 86:11), can there be wholeness and strength. ‘A house divided against itself will not stand.’ (Matt 12:25) This applies to individuals, families, churches, even nations. Integration and integrity lead to health and strength.