The Perplexingly Complicated Complexities of Over-Analyzing, Pt. 3

So here we arrive, our hands full of Part 1 and Part 2 as we approach the precipice of the final mile of our journey...Part 3. And yet, this entry is what I intended to outline from the very beginning. In case you haven't noticed, I get caught up in my daydreams pretty easily and branch off into many and varied worth-while tangents ;)

One thing I realized a few years ago is that I was over-analyzing my spiritual walk with God. "Am I praying the right way? Is there something I missed on my do-gooder checklist, and is it keeping me from God? Have I prayed enough or thought about God enough today to be considered a good Christian?" At the bottom of my good intentions, these questions oftentimes lay in wait, and they jump at the first chance to deceive me.

In the end, the questions at the bottom of my good intentions end up leading me to resent being a Christian in the first place. "It's too hard," I'll conclude. "I end up being more anxious than anything - the 'at-peace' feeling Christianity advertises is overshadowed by its extremely weighty expectations." Deep confessions of a long-time Christian. And you know what? After years of struggling with this, one thing this heart can't shake is the feeling that this can't be the way God intended true life to taste.

The good news is, it's not.

All the straining, all the wrestling to live up to expectations I assumed God had on me, and I realized my strivings were offset by one irony: God never publicized true life as something so illusive, so impossible, yet we as humans, with our finite minds, reduce God's intentions to something we can reason. "God must expect a lot of me because I don't feel like I'm living up to who I should be." Or, "there must be a recipe to full life in Christ, and I haven't gotten it right yet, but it'll hit me someday in a flash of divine revelation." Hmmm, what a quandary...and all the while, God is holding his hand outstretched with the very life we are blind to and stretching for elsewhere.

"What are you trying to get at, Shane? Hurry up, I've got a roast in the oven." Here's the skinny: the way to true life is simple...not complicated, not illusive, not over-bearing. It's extremely and ridiculously simple.

"Well if it's simple, Shane, wouldn't I have figured it out by now?" This kind of simple is one of the only simple's I've encountered that takes going through the complexities of life before reaching the truth. Usually we start with the simple things to get to the richer, deeper things: simple things like eggs, bread and milk can be made into so many yummy recipes, from something as sweet as french toast to something as delightful as bread pudding. A paintbrush and some paint can create the finest work of art, or it can decorate a room into a lavish living space. This is the way life goes in many cases; but the irony of spirituality is that it works in reverse - we boggle our brains and rip our hearts out to understand how to be Godly and why God would love us in the first place, and when the dust settles, we see that something as simple as grace was standing there the whole time.

Jesus addressed the moral strivings of those around him by summing it all up, wrapping the simple truth neatly in an unexpected delivery:

"At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?'" 

Once again, the disciples are missing the point, like so many of us often do. They are focused on figuring out how to do this Christ-following thing right, trying to reason out their salvation. Jesus surprises them with his response...

"He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: 'Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.'"

Jesus totally flips everything on its head; he uses a child as an example of heart-posture. He goes against the grain of culture and uses the simplest, most innocent of things in this world - a child - to serve as a metaphor of what our faith should measure up to. Not complexities, not confusing spiritual jargon, not condemning man-made dogma, not temporary spiritual ecstasy...simple faith, like that of a child. Innocent, doe-eyed awe of God and His gifts. Excitement at the taste of His presence. Active obedience when God's fatherly voice beckons. Unadulterated joy, dancing in the shower of life God rains on us. You may be thinking, "Wow Shane, this all sounds pretty cliche and childish. What kind of maturity is in a spirituality like that?" Yeah, the Pharisees were worried about maturity too, about looking and acting the part...and in doing so, they weighed a lot of people down with false definitions of God's heart. With His next breath, Jesus went on to address those kind of people:

If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!" (Matthew 18:1-7)

I guess what Jesus was saying to the disciples and Pharisees alike, in a not-so-crass kinda way, was that age-old adage we so easily forget to live by: "Keep it simple, stupid." A child doesn't view their relationship with a good father burdensome or demanding. A child doesn't see their role in life as demanding and depressing. In fact, I doubt a child thinks about these things at all. What a child does focus on is having fun, living as close to their father's heart as possible, crawling onto his lap whenever possible to snuggle and be loved, and in-turn, love others with a love like the father's. (of course, I'm also speaking metaphorically about God the Father). Oh that we would keep it simple and not ruin spirituality with our penchant for complicating things.

Even the law-experts of Jesus' day knew what the simple truth was: "On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. 'Teacher,' he asked, 'what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 'What is written in the Law?' he replied. 'How do you read it?' He answered, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, love your neighbor as yourself.' 'You have answered correctly,' Jesus replied. 'Do this and you will live.' (Luke 10:25-28, emphasis added) Notice that the expert knew the answer, the fundamental purpose of humanity, and yet so many experts like himself chose to view God as a puzzle to solve. Maybe thinking, like so many of us do, "God expects a lot more than a child-like faith, how could the answer be so basic? Doesn't He want us to go 'deeper' in our knowledge of Him?" He does, but the depth of intimacy with Him comes from grasping the most basic, yet strong, roots of our faith - love God, love people. Child-like simplicity, empowered by the strength of an all-consuming God. Hand-in-glove.

So I ask you now, how do you read it? That was the question Jesus posed to the expert, and He's posing it to you this very second. Will you read God like He's unattainable, unreachable, exclusive to the ones who seem to have it all together. Or will you choose to read God like a child, one who enjoys God with your whole heart, loving Him with what you can give as you are now instead of thinking you need to be someone you assume He wants you to be before you can give anything. Stop over-complicating a God that's on your doorstep. Stop over-analyzing a Father who only wants to love on you. Come to the well. Drink fully. Enjoy the water like a child would.