Simplicity is Pixie Dust

Before I begin, let me clarify, I believe finding simplicity in life is very important.  We are met with a barrage of complications daily and finding ways to live simply and avoid materialism are very important.

However, I am discovering that is if there is something people are not, it is simple.
Many of us, myself included, would like to convince others and ourselves that we are simple.
A, B, and C makes us happy, so what is really complicated about that anyway?  While AB&C may truly make us happy, on closer inspection there is a problem with that.  AB&C will not continuously make us happy.We are molded and shaped in many ways by many experiences and many people.  This accumulation of personality and history have made us all complicated.  However, this type of complicated, I think, is beautiful.

When you first meet people, they are like dimly lit rooms.  The sun shines through the window in the corner; the walls are freshly painted.  There might even be some quirky quotations on the wall, a welcome mat by the door, and possibly some furniture set up.  However, as you venture into the room, you notice the neatly framed quotations hide cracks from where the room has settled.  The furniture is covering numerous scratches, and you notice the couch is attempting to replace the emptiness that would have been there.  The sunlight is sometimes replaced with clouded skies and maybe even the occasional storm.  The corner farthest from the window has even experienced water rot and has caved in.  On closer inspection, the room is dingy.  It has a lot of nice parts, but now, the facade is gone.

We put on such a show for others; it's tiresome.

It's interesting to me that we are taught to expect simplicity from others when we, ourselves, are unable to achieve it.

Not to be cliche and rag on Disney movies (I quite enjoy them.), but, please, look at the characters. I'll use Cinderella for an example. (I mean, they are getting better I think...Nemo has some depth. [excuse the ocean joke] ) Cinderella is portrayed as this happy singing chic who submissively serves her purely evil stepmother.  Why is her stepmother so bitter anyway?  If Cinderealla has so many "wishes her heart makes when she is fast asleep," why doesn't she go after them? These characters are so one dimensional.  Cinderella is "good" and her stepmother is "evil."

It doesn't work that way.  It would be easier if it was that simple, but it's not.

I have parts of me that are dark.  She is the part of me who makes snap judgements about people who I later learn to love.  She is the part of me who lashes out in anger when I am inconvenienced.  She is the one who has a short fuse.  She is the one that is ceaselessly impatient.  She is the one who lacks self-control.

I praise Jesus for healing this part of me. I praise Him for being so much greater and full of more grace than I am full of darkness.  It is such a process.  He knows, ha.  Thankfully, I know He has already triumphed.

We see this in ourselves, but we hide it so well.  I feel healing can be found when we can find the courage to be candid with one another.

We need to understand that we are all complicated people.  And that is okay.

Simplicity within people is like pixie dust: sparkly, rare, and lacking substance.

Complicated is beautiful.

19

That's how old this guy is. He is my age. Personally, my heart and soul mourns for him. Maybe that's not American, but I couldn't care less. I am called to a higher nation, the nation of Christ. Yes, I love America, and I am amazingly blessed to be here. Yes, what he did was heinous, tragic, and wrong; yes, he should should be served justice by the law, but I pray with all my heart it's not the death sentence. I feel Jesus telling me every time my thoughts wander to this young man, that Jesus wants him. This guy is not too far from grace. He is not out of the reach of the redemptive power of God's love. Jesus died the same death for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as He died for me. I'm not trying to be disrespectful or discount the people he killed and injured, so please don't think that. I mourn for them and their families so much as well. I just see him as a fellow human being in desperate need of the love of Jesus, and it breaks my heart.

in His image...

Wow, I will post sometime about these last two amazing weeks.  I have been to Urbana 2012 in St. Louis, and I have been to Passion 2012 in Atlanta.  God has shown up in so many ways, and I can never stop being amazed at how big He is; God has revealed more of His heart to me in these days, and I am overwhelmed by His outside of logic love.  It is truly incomprehensible.  All glory to Him.  I want my whole life to proclaim His glory.  He is the God who runs to us while we are still far from Him.  He searches relentlessly for us, and He calls us to Him.  He is so so so worthy of all praise and admiration. Truly, no amount of words I can say can truly captivate His majesty.

God amazes me by revealing His truths to me.  Yes, like a child I have heard His word and been amazed.  I am so unworthy, but it is through Jesus and The Holy Spirit that I have been counted worthy to hear God's word.  Jesus says that God is happy to reveal His word to His children (Matthew 11:25-26), and He has.

This is what I heard as I was sitting in a dome with 60-69,000 other people...
God is infinitely perfect, and He is in a three part community with Himself through the trinity.  We are made in God's image, but through the fall we have been rendered incomplete.  We are born in two parts: body and soul.  However, when we accept Christ's invitation to salvation, He comes to live in us as The Holy Spirit.  It is then that we become more like God in three parts: body, soul, and The Holy Spirit.

I thought this was a cool revelation, and I wanted to share.  Thanks and praise be to God for moving us towards Him.  May we grow more towards His perfect will each day.

Reminiscing

I am prepping spiritually for Urbana 2012 and Passion 2013, so I was flipping through my prayer journal I take places like that.  I found this which I wrote when I went on a mission trip to the Ooglala Native American Reservation in South Dakota....
[This was my reaction of my first sighting of the Badlands...]

Each time I blinked and my eyes opened yet again, I never ceased my amazement.  Like the psalmist, my heart sang at the work of my Lord's hands.  The light touched parts of the undulating sand mounds casting shadows.  The vastness of this seemingly separate world spread further than the horizon.  God truly does make beautiful things out of the dust.



P.S. These pictures don't do it justice.

The Badlands are named for their desolation.  These lands gave me a physical affirmation that God can and will and does create beauty out of desolation.  The hues of red riveted about the sand statues, and as the sun set, the red hues intensified turning later to blue and purple.  Although we listened to a devotional, my eyes were locked on that piece, on that glimpse, of heavenly and majestic beauty.