Jan 25th
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
29 But let me say this, dear brothers and sisters: The time that remains is very short. So from now on, those with wives should not focus only on their marriage. 30 Those who weep or who rejoice or who buy things should not be absorbed by their weeping or their joy or their possessions. 31 Those who use the things of the world should not become attached to them. For this world as we know it will soon pass away.
Part of the Christians life is about learning how to disconnect from the material world. I’m not sure how I feel about the part in this scripture where it calls those who have wives to lives as if they do not. But I can def connect with the last part of the scripture.
I’ll have to dig a little more to see what Paul means about the wife part.
But back to our disconnect from the material world. Christians should operate with a different mentality. They should operate by a different set of rules, by a different set of patterns, while still understanding the rules that exist to create social norms. One day I would love to further explain the following, but for now bear with me.
I’ve noticed that a lot of us are just patterns. We have been given patterns all of our lives. We go to school, we graduate, we go to college, we get married, we buy a house, we retire. When we work out we follow a pattern, a prescribed formula. Our style of dress is just a pattern given to us by a trend that we connect with. Even our language. So we are all just a bunch of patterns that we choose consciously and subconsciously. Even in our faith.
Christians follow a certain pattern of thinking, or what is called group think. And any time that we divert from those patterns or when we create our own patterns we are viewed as different from those who find comfort in patterns. But the scriptures shows us over and over again that God does not fit any particular pattern.
In the book of Ecclesiastes we learn that God is not about war because sometimes God is about peace. God is not about planting because sometimes God is about uprooting.I believe that today’s scripture shows us that we cannot be controlled by any one way of thinking or limit ourselves ever to
What God wants from us
Where God is leading us
and…What we believe about God
Whenever we disconnect from the material world we find ourselves. But when we are too connected to anything material, or when we are too connected to any one idea, we tend to actually be controlled by it.
My favorite artist David Ramirez puts it this way,
“I’ve been holding on so long it seems, what I’m holding is holding me.”
Paul teaches us that in order to please God we must free ourselves from anything in this world that prevents us from seeing God in a new way, constantly.When we open up ourselves to God, and anything God wants for us, we find ourselves. It’s quite hard to explain. But the connection to the material world is just a metaphor that Paul is using to describe how addicted we are to patterns.
What Ecclesiastes says in Chapter 2, and what Paul says in today’s reading is the same thing Paul says in Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Check out this video of one of my favorite movement specialist creating his own patterns. In his video he is Freeing himself from the patterns of exercise philosophy, while at the same time using the philosophy, to create his own patterns. Warning. It’s a little weird. But it’s only weird because many of us have not experienced a paradigm shift. We still operate under comfortable patterns.
Love you guys.