Today many things have changed. The world has become smaller. Life is more complex and technology has grown to a point where we are totally dependent on electricity.
The good news is that we live consciously in this world. We have thoughts throughout the day - we make decisions and we carry anxieties and worries.
What happens when we turn to the Bible for guidance. We find competition between spiritualities and idolatry. Faithfulness to God alone is always in question and in opposition to those worldly things that compete for people’s loyalty and devotion. And there is the old internal temptations of greed, lust, covetousness and many others.
In the face of these onslaught of daily commercials, working hard on our desires for comfort, security and safety, we find ourselves inundated with a constant barrage of information and suggestions about the way life is or ought to be or could be, we are sometimes tempted to respond to something that has little or nothing to do with our actual lives.
Paul reminds the Philippians that all of life is a process of working out the transformation of salvation. Not “working on” as if such transformation was self initiated or self inflicted, but “working out” as in moving mindfully through life, directing and redirecting ourselves back to the basic belief that God is constantly working in and through and around us. It means, at the very least, giving God as much “brain space” as possible as protection and guidance through all of the other messages that come our way.
Philippians 2 : 12 - 13
Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
(0683 23VIII2008)