God has demonstrated time and time again through the scriptures that he's not a formula. He established rituals through the Jewish people, using patterns to teach them. They, in turn, made the rituals and the patterns the object of their worship rather than God.Ps Phil reveals that when we are in the winter season there is a tendency to do the same, to look only at the performance of what we are supposed to do. In fact, it's an opportunity to move into freedom, moving from a place of self-dependence into a place of self-denial.