It's Not Complex to be Simple

...there must be a definite termination point in the self-examination process. Otherwise, we can easily fall into a permanent habit of self-condemnation. Confession begins in sorrow, but it ends in joy.

On the matter of complexity. It seems to me that when complexities abound, so does sorrow, and when simplicity is present, there also accompanies joy. In this chapter on confession I see also a path (and a call) to simplify. We become overburdened with the weight of many things, and we are not able to bear it. My wife, my work, my daughter, each has complexity to it that I do not fully understand. I try to bend each of these to my control and find an inability to steer them as I want, they each having their own wills. I confess that I have tried to do what is not meant for me. The Lord is the Shepherd, and yet I am His charge.

I have great sorrow in these things. Yet my sorrow is not quite what it needs to be, not quite pure enough. It is mixed with sorrow for myself that results in self-pity. The self-sorrow on its own I don't think would be bad, but when it becomes self-pity, then it becomes a force of its own, seeking to steer all around to orbit the I. And this is where complexity begins.

Simplicity allows the Truth to rule and reign. Complexity, I find in my life, is often a manifestation of contrivance. I seek to make things that are not as they are. But it's not faith because the central figure is I, not He.

King of Kings, guide me in Your truth today. Steer me from evil, even myself. Allow me to fulfill the upward call in Christ Jesus, in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God.

In Jesus Name,

Amen


2 Corinthians 11:3
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.
2Corinthians
1:12 For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.

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