Equipped

As a body, we are well equipped to do God's work.

The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knitted together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. - Ephesians 4:11-16

We are quickly becoming a population that is totally dependent on an external source for all our information and knowledge, connected to a well-informed computer brain that answers all our questions, organizes all our thoughts and keeps us informed of what we are supposed to do every minute of the day.

We have given Google, Amazon and Facebook the keys to our lives and our smart devices now run our lives, almost completely.

We have done for technology what we were reluctant to do for God, putting ourselves in the hands of algorithms  and artificial intelligence, rather than the real knowledge and wisdom.

We have let this happen to us because we believe these trusted sources exist solely to serve us, while we know that is not the truth.  We know they have an objective, to capture our behavior and trust so we will buy more form them and through them.

I imagine God could have chosen to work that way, giving us what we want so we will bring more people to God, but He doesn't con us or use us.  He depends on us to be truly part of the plan, to become the Body.

We have always been fully equipped to be with God, trusting in God to help us through this life, living up to the full potential of our being, but instead, we have chosen to hand ourselves over to other sources, to be used.

The good news is that we can now easily see how dependent we have become on external sources of knowledge and support, and maybe, just maybe, we can be ready to change our ways.

This is a new year, a new decade, a new chance to start over.  Why not shift our dependency from the artificial minds to the source of all knowledge?

We can be instruments of God's plan, and still have a free will to be who we are.

More to come...