Personally, I can get bogged down in the complexity of life. For years I've been on a search for simplicity. Yes, for years. I've made a number of adjustments and I find that one must stay focused and determined not only to gain but maintain it.
In my blog two weeks ago I talked around the "too soon old, too late wise" adage. We don't have to be wise late! We can have it now. Thinking on this has brought me to another thought and one that seems to make all the seeming complexity of spiritual disciplines very simple. It's this; there is no higher aspiration than to "be one with Him". Jesus' prayer in John 17 is where I get this phrase. His priestly prayer over those men regarding their "oneness" with Him and His Father, immediately preceeding Gethsemane and the Cross, is so compelling...powerful in its implications and staggering in its simplicity.
The more I think about it, I realize that Jesus implied it throughout his earthly ministry to those near to Him [for example His admonition to Martha, that Mary was doing the only necessary thing...sitting at His feet...enjoying oneness with Him]. Oswald Chambers says it this way: "...Believe on Me (Jesus' words) - pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow rivers of living water...we don't get at these springs of our natural life by common sense...Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life...comes by our concentration on our Father in heaven."
Brother Lawrence wrote a landmark book about simply "Practicing The Presence of God" and how that one thing charted his course and kept him there!
"One with Him"... because I'm a slow learner and since many times, complexity can baffle me, a simple statement like this can settle me down and get me back to where I need to be, in simplicity and essentials. I'm working on it, being one with Him, and...I recommend it.
Blessings,
Mitch
