Excerpt from Philippians 2:12-18

"…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you…"

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Sometimes you tremble because you're scared, or cold.  Sometimes it's because of neurological or muscular issues.  Sometimes you just overdid it at the coffee shop.

But actually, you're trembling all the time.  Everything is.  A physicist will tell you that there's not a thing anywhere that's not constantly vibrating, at the atomic level, with the Energy that created and drives the universe.

When the Bible speaks of trembling in the presence of God, most people assume it's talking about trembling in fear.

Maybe, but I think it's more like this: the closer you get to the Sun, the hotter you feel.  The closer you get to one of those big metal balls in science class, the more your hair stands up.  And the closer you get to the Source of all the creation's energy, the more you vibrate.  The trembling that's always there anyway, trace of the Hand that created you, suddenly intensifies.  The life of the cosmos courses through you and you begin to hum, to sing like a plucked string.  Suddenly, you're all potential energy.

And the only thing to do then is to go kinetic.

Prayer

In the beginning was you, God.  All things came into being through you, and without you not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in you was life, and the life was the energy of all the cosmos.  Fill me up with that power until I tremble, and then send me out full of it to do your work.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell, a United Church of Christ minister, is the co-author, with Curtis J. Preston, of the Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ, published by The Pilgrim Press.

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