I used to understand this verse as describing real worldliness: you know, as a teen: rock music, dancing, going to bowling alleys where there were lots of smoky rooms filled with shady hoodlums.
Now as a a woman a few years past my teens: it would be easy to just transfer that label to more age-appropriate descriptions & stay 'clean': no social (or any kind of) drinking, no 'soap operas' in the afternoon, no steamy romance novels or movies, etc.
That is not being 'conformed to this world', right?!
At some level, it probably is.
But I've been struck much closer to heart in my own life-- that obeying this verse is far from only the avoidance of some predetermined behaviors deemed 'worldly'.
If it were only so simple.
Being conformed to this world, as I scrutinize the corners of my own dark heart (Jer. 17:9), is looming always ever so close, like a vaporizer giving off its steam to permeate wherever it is allowed to drift...and so it wafts in.
I recognize it not in my desire to turn on 'Days of our Lives' or to peruse the 'Top Ten Sexiest Guys of 2008' on the cover of People. ( No struggle here.)
No, it is in the desires I don't have.
- The ease I fight in not loving God like I know I should & so want to--often because I love other things more...
- It is in the gymnastics that I mentally & spiritually do so that I don't have to face my own sinfulness in a problem or conflict--"there must be a reason/syndrome/formula/workshop that will provide me with an answer to free me from this dilemma!" I insist.
- It is in my own weakness that sometimes questions, 'is fighting off my sinful heart worth the fight?!!!"
In #1) Materialism & idolatry,
In #2) Avoiding personal responsibility [I'm the victim],
In # 3) "I deserve better" or "It shouldn't be this hard"
Ugly, huh?!
I so want to battle this!
How thankful I am for God's answer to this dilemma. It is in the second part of the above verse, and I'll write more on it in the days to come.
How does the world tempt you? What is your struggle?
