Care and attention in all the right places.

If you took a straw poll of your friends and family, would they describe you as a careful person? Would your colleagues say that you're 'risk averse'?  Are you one those people who strives to get things right first time? Do you take time to think through your options and their likely consequences? When you make a mistake, do you scrap what you've done and start again?

I'm that kind of person - you wouldn't believe how many times I've started trying to write this post!

Paul gives us a summary of everything he's written to the Ephesians so far in 5:15-21, so if you're new to these posts you might want to look back and track our progress through the letter. How does he pull it all together?

"Be careful to be wise". After all of the calls to live differently, to play our part in the Church, and to let the whole world see the wonderful gift that God gave to us in Jesus, Paul knows that for unity in the Church
we need to be careful to be wise.

What does that mean? Well, throughout chapters 4 and 5 we can see what God's expectations are of a living in a wise way. Among the examples we have, we need to be wise to live in truth (4:25), to resolve arguments (4:26), to speak positively (4:29) and to avoid sexual immorality (5:3). Now that's not going to be easy, especially when the days are evil (5:16), but we need to live a life that's strongly dovetailed to the will of God - we're not what we used to be and we're to be taking every opportunity (5:16) to make the most of our time.

We also need to be clear about God's will (v17). That doesn't mean using ourselves at the starting point and only thinking about how God's will relates to 'me'. This isn't about that moment of crisis or indecision when we look to God for answers. No, this is about being clear about God's blueprint for humanity - it involves 'me', but it's so much greater than that.

As mysterious as God's will is, Paul states quite clearly that ultimately it is to unite all things in heaven and earth under Christ (1:9). Now our part of that is to be part of a new and united people, together in a relationship with God under Jesus. God's will isn't about making our lives better - that can happen as a result of living according to his will, but it's not the primary purpose of it.

Paul urges us to be controlled by the Spirit (v18-21). We'll have to explore the nature and person of the Holy Spirit another time, but Paul's point here is that being filled with the Spirit helps us to submit to one another - to put others before ourselves, and the needs of others before our own, and to put ourselves to one side to build up others.

There's a lot to be said for being careful.

What are you most careful about? Think about your answer to that, because it reveals a lot about what you value the most.