Word Creation Wednesday

"Word Creation Wednesday", the weekly post where I try to create a new word based on my experiences of the past week, has been a challenging, yet enjoyable discipline here at The Journey...  It's always fun for me to sift through the mental sludge of the past week and try to come up with something that I feel is worth saying.  Here's this week's word...

"Complexification" - The tendency to make simple things more complicated than they really are.  One good example would be the creation of this word itself.  The most dangerous aspect of this is in regard to spiritual matters, where the need to understand everything before doing anything often causes us to sink into either paralysis or hopelessness.  Jesus is relegated to a nice teacher who had some good ideas or a revolutionary who leads us places that we are too scared to go.  In between those two there is a Jesus who teaches us where we are going and walks with us as we go there - a Jesus who seeks little children willing to follow.

This tendency is amplified by speed and stress (which are often so tightly interwoven they are hard to separate).  If your life is moving at 90 miles an hour it becomes easy to overlook the simple and assume complexity.  If you are under stress from people's (or your own) unrealistic expectations you will assume that there is always more to what you see than merely what you see.  (It really can't be as simple as just loving God and loving those around you, can it?)  There are beacons of light in our world, however, who remind us that the goal is more about who we are becoming than in full understanding of how that becoming takes place. Mother Teresa's quote comes to mind...

"We can do no great things alone.  We can only do small things with great love."  

You defeat complexification by slowing down and disciplining yourself to look for what God is saying to you in the quiet.  Len Hjalmarson (who writes a great blog, by the way) quotes someone I highly respect here...

“God’s dream for radical newness will require discipline. Not discipline connected to punishment or shame, but discipline that roots us in Christ, deepening our connection to God and one another. This rootedness will come from having consistent, ordered ways in which we remain open to Grace, and they will be unique to each one of us. Grace constantly seeks entrance into our souls in order to effect change, but Grace will never force her way in. Discipline is the means by which we open ourselves to the sort of radical change that has always been God’s intention for us.” 

--Gordon Cosby

Remaining open to Grace...that's a worthy goal.  It destroys complexification. But you never accomplish it in a hurry.