In Christ Alone

August 27th,

 I try and make things more complicated than they need to be.

It's ninety degrees, i'm shaking, everyone is watching, a thousand thoughts rushed my head every second and when I come about I see my my instructor swim alongside me and say, "Carmen, stop overanalyzing.  Just do what we taught you and you'll be fine."  This is three years ago taking my lifeguard course physical exam.  Fast forward three years and two days ago; I heard I was leading a group of high school students in building a ramp and I instantly thought, "but I don't know how, and what if I mess up? "  I've led hundreds of students in much harder projects, what am I so worried about? It's all based off the thought that somehow our efforts have to be good enough, that if we try hard enough we'll succeed and if not, well then we've failed and no one approves of us.  I do this all the time, my life is riddled with circumstance's where the only hesitation in progress is that of my own skepticism on wether I can do it.  This is so easy to do.  It will consume your life if you don't realize something so obvious, none of our efforts will ever be perfect. You see when you shoot for acceptance through perfection, not only in human eyes but through religion, you will always fail.  I have come to the point where I know that I don't have to get it just right, It's where my heart is that really matters.  Christ says that man looks at the outer appearance but He looks at the heart.  If we're aiming to please God through immaculate, stupendous performances we'll find ourselves failing humorously.  I think of something said by one of J.R.R Tolken's characters, Gandalf;  "I wish the ring had never come to me, I wish none of this had ever happened. So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."   Christ says something similar, "Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight."  These hard times will come, and we'll be faced with things we don't know how to figure out, things we don't know what to do with but it's in these times we have to decide, will I give him my best and trust him to do the rest? Can we lay aside our pride and give our efforts knowing they're less than perfect? Let me save you a lot of trouble and say yes, yes we can do that. Yes he will pick up where we lack.  Going it alone wont work, don't try to figure it all out, there's nothing there but anger, anxiety and disappointment. We don't have to complicate it, we get this idea that by adding more rules and more qualifiers we're doing a better job, that's not true.  It doesn't have to be complicated, life isn't a puzzle until you try cutting it into little pieces. We have already been given all we need to know, it's a straight forward little booklet called the Bible.  Christ expects no more of us than what we know of him, do this and you will have fought the good fight, and ran the good race.

Ephesians 2:8-9
                        "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast."