My long time friend, Jamie Hansen, sent the following email out. It resonated, made me think and check my own life. I thought perhaps you’d like to see it also – I’ve done the underlining and bolding for emphasis. My comments will continue at the end.
We have been talking about simplicity in Christ, and what the enemies to that simplicity are. We have looked at the “noise” of our society, the demand to be constantly engaged with audible or at least technological noise. When was the last time you experienced extended silence? When were you last caught up on, and declared a sabbath from the intrusion of email? Do you feel a compulsion to turn on the radio even before the car starts? There is conversation, there is music, there is car, truck, plane, and machinery noise. There are dogs, TV, sports, work demands. There is Face-book, email, Twitter, YouTube, etc. etc. These are just the outward noises.
We also have the continual tapes that play in our brain. Our own inward “dialogues”. Our personal one way brain speeches about who, why, what, and where we are at. As if we have a continual psychological GPS system that has to constantly tell us where we are at in regards to life, family, goals, longings, fears, politics, economics, etc. Much of that conversation is less than edifying. It is at times utterly brutal and complex and draining. Psychologists tell us that eighty percent (80%) of our thinking relates to ourselves. How ARE WE? This is a major enemy of simplicity, of needed energy, and of peace. Hence, the command of God; “In everything give thanks”.
Jesus commanded us not to anxiously ponder about tomorrow. He said we could not change our outcomes by anxious worry. Worry is paying interest on a debt that does not exist! I am forcibly impacted when I read Paul’s words in Galatians as he says; I am experiencing fear, I have deep concern that you are going to be moved away from the simplicity, the focused purity of a single eye, the uncluttered sense of the gospel. I am concerned about the competitors of Christ in your life. Are you going to opt out and seek human validation?
Will you succumb to the fear of man, the strong draw of overwhelming shame that pushes you to seek worth and validation in human effort and business. Will you trade in the available divine washing to instead scrub with the dirty rags of self, repetitive prayers, groveling or performance. If we hold unforgivness toward ourselves, due to unresolved issues, it leads to steep prices in shopping for peace. Many are truly blind to how complicated their processes of coping really are. Notice I said coping, not real living.
When I was a pastor, I counseled several women who wanted marriage counseling. Four of them were frustrated, weary, and their husbands were also emotionally threadbare and confused. Most of these wives felt their husbands were their problem. (I’m sure they were to some degree…) All of the issues they wanted to talk about involved marriage problems, but in probing, they also confessed their struggle with forgiveness and performance in their lives.
As I talked with the first couple, out of the blue I asked the wife if she had ever had an abortion. It came into my mind from nowhere, and I struggled with asking. She looked truly confused, a bit startled, and then she gave a vague smile and said, “well, I have actually had four abortions, but that has nothing to do with this. I just need help with these other things.” After that experience, very similar conversations took place with three other couples. All had had abortions. None of them equated ANY of the issues of unforgivness of self, their drive toward performance Christianity, and struggles with intimacy in their marriage as having anything to do with that “other” thing. They had been moved away from simplicity, their lives were immensely complicated, but the source of that complexity had completely eluded them.
Most of us have not had an abortion procedure but most of us have “stuff” that can be profoundly able to complicate our priceless simplicity in Christ. Peace is priceless. A mind that has freedom and power to choose the right and enjoy it is without equal in things of value. We must not underestimate the need for visiting the old paths, the springs of simple faith, trust, and a view that heaven is real and eternity is shining on our minds. This is what gave Paul the ability to endure and process the unfathomable suffering he endured and calmly say the entire thing was “light” on his scale. Only an accurate and living eternal perspective can translate that lifestyle into a shrug and a joy and an ever alive purpose throughout.
God grant us a new desire for true simplicity and razor sharp comprehension of the main things.
My comments:
While most have not had a physical abortion – most have aborted the plans and purposes of God in their lives to some extent. Either because we did not believe God’s love for us or did not know His plans and purposes, we have done our own thing. The cares of this life have led us step-by-step away from God. The only One who loves us enough to heal and deliver us from any trying ordeal – with abundant life in HIS hands.
As you read the following scriptures – reach out to the LORD who formed you in your mother’s womb with gifts, talents and abilities – the One who has prepared a path before you and will keep you on it in peace if you will allow Him to do so. That peace is amazing and cannot be understood in the face of distress – but is more real than the problem itself.
Submit to God and His plan for your life and you’re on your way to LIFE! Fun, free, exciting, love and peace.
Psalm 139
O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down,And are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.
Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.If I take the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me,And the light around me will be night,” even the darkness is not dark to You, and the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.
For You formed my inward parts;You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!How vast is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand.When I awake, I am still with You. Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
Jeremiah 29:11-14 For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’


