2 Corinthians 11:3
But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
“Listen for simplicity.”
This is what I heard in my time of listening to Jesus this morning.
Listen for those basics before straying off into the complex. First establish a baseline, assessing whether certain foundational beliefs and practices are in place before discussing problems, issues, and conundrums.
We convolute and complicate everything. And we are confused and unhappy for it. I am more and more convinced that we looooove to convolute and complicate. Perhaps due to an underlying laziness/ lack of desire and motivation to do the simple basics.
If someone who is a follower of Jesus is troubled, listen for their mention or lack of mention of prayer, Scripture, Jesus, rhythms, Sabbath, spiritual friendship, use of their time, solitude and silence.
We tend to move on without first establishing these foundations as vital before we can think of that which is beyond the basics. It is so very difficult to talk about anything of depth without some foundational practices in place. This is due, at least in some part, to foggy, skewed, and inaccurate vision. One cannot even see the real problem clearly, if at all.
It’s very tempting to wanna dive in and help someone, but first we must check belief, vision, rhythms, and mind and soul training. After some basics are firmly established, we are more able to see clearly and interact with the world as it is, not just as we wish it would be.
This hearkens to the person who would ask if there was a diet pill they could take to lose weight after telling me that they workout once every week or two, and down three glasses of wine and half a cheesecake right before bed every nite.
Uhhhhhh…
There’s no pill for that as far as I know.
I am sure we’ve all had those times when we’re struggling with someone (or something), going off, and a friend simply asks, “Have you prayed for them?”
“Shut up.”
“Well maybe try that first.”