adapting to the culture

One thing that we have had to learn is to adapt to the culture here in Madrid. There are many things that look like home: PC City, McDonalds, countless Starbucks, malls, walmart type stores called CarreFour, German and Swedish Cars, golf courses, and the list could go on.

There are also a lot of things that are different: bullfights, running with the bulls, eating lunch at 3 pm and dinner at 11 pm, walking everywhere, public transportation, eating all the parts of a pig, and this list could go on and on as well.

As internationals living and working overseas we have to adapt to the culture that we are living in. We have to learn their language and learn about their customs. This is healthy and it is essential if one is going to live for a while overseas.

However, there is a danger. I do not know how much nor often that I have thought about this but when I read The Message yesterday it struck me in a new way. I think this is true regardless of where you live. You could be living in the same small town for 30 years or you could have just moved to a large metro area or could have just moved into the college culture. I think this is true when you move overseas as well.

There is a danger of over identifying with the culture. What if some of the things of the culture should not be learned or better still ... acted out. I know for instance here in Western Europe that it is not a society that prides itself in being dependent upon God. It is not a culture that seeks a personal deep relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a culture of secularism. It is a culture in this season of world history that is rather rich. Thier euro is pretty strong right now compared to the US dollar. It is a culture where "anything goes" and being tolerant is the name of the game. It is a culture of openness. It is a culture where morality is not always a high value.

As a follower of Christ it can be dangerous to be put into such a culture suddenly. It is like we have to adapt to the culture but at the same time learn to make the right choices amidst living in a culture such as this. In some ways it could be compared with living away from home for the first time like in college. But the subtle danger of living in such a culture is to be lulled into becoming self dependent, materialistic, secularistic and little by little becoming loose in your thinking and moral choices. Maybe not suddenly but maybe a better metaphor would be "drifting" and then suddenly you realize you are far from where you need to be.

Let me print out The Message and see if this makes more sense now.

Romans 12
Place Your Life Before God
1So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life--your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life--and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

The idea here is not to be conformed to the world which is easy to do especially when you are trying to fit in. The life God wants you to live is to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

think and live,

larry