Complicate Your Life
By John Fischer
Relationships are complicated. Have you ever thought about how much easier life would be without any people in it? How about it? A sure way to an uncomplicated life would be to remove everyone but you. Right?
When you stop and think about it there really are only two options: isolation or complication. You can hole up inside your own shell or come out and complicate your neat, orderly life with unpredictable relationships. Unfortunately, love has no other options.
At the end of the romantic comedy, Six Days, Seven Nights, Harrison Ford decides to complicate his simple, controlled life with a love relationship, and we all think he has made a good choice, because we too have fallen for Anne Heche’s bright blue eyes. “Go for it,” we say to him at the predictable feel-good ending, “complicate the [heck] out of your life”—which is precisely what he says with a slight adjustment for the fact that this is a devotional.
Ever imagine how complicated God’s life got when He created us? “Now the Lord observed the extent of the people’s wickedness, and He saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry He had ever made them. It broke His heart” (Genesis 6:5-6). Hey, even God has His days.
Yes, God’s life got very complicated when He created us, and that complication culminated in a devastating crucifixion. It took that much for Him to straighten everything out. Yet that didn’t stop Him. So why should we stop at nothing less in order to love each other? Love is worth it.
Love is impossible in isolation. Isolation is a vacuum and love needs a relationship to breathe. Any relationship brings complications; so it’s your choice. Hey, someone made the right choice or you wouldn’t be here to make your own now.
Lest you think that others are the source of your complications, think again. Relationships merely show us who we really are. They are like mirrors into our own dysfunction, and that is actually part of our salvation, because we probably wouldn’t see it otherwise.
So think about all the complicated relationships in your life today, and thank God for what they show you about yourself. Ask God to heal you and then put your arms around those complications, because the overcoming power of God’s love is in them, waiting for you, and you wouldn’t want anything less.
By John Fischer
Relationships are complicated. Have you ever thought about how much easier life would be without any people in it? How about it? A sure way to an uncomplicated life would be to remove everyone but you. Right?
When you stop and think about it there really are only two options: isolation or complication. You can hole up inside your own shell or come out and complicate your neat, orderly life with unpredictable relationships. Unfortunately, love has no other options.
At the end of the romantic comedy, Six Days, Seven Nights, Harrison Ford decides to complicate his simple, controlled life with a love relationship, and we all think he has made a good choice, because we too have fallen for Anne Heche’s bright blue eyes. “Go for it,” we say to him at the predictable feel-good ending, “complicate the [heck] out of your life”—which is precisely what he says with a slight adjustment for the fact that this is a devotional.
Ever imagine how complicated God’s life got when He created us? “Now the Lord observed the extent of the people’s wickedness, and He saw that all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry He had ever made them. It broke His heart” (Genesis 6:5-6). Hey, even God has His days.
Yes, God’s life got very complicated when He created us, and that complication culminated in a devastating crucifixion. It took that much for Him to straighten everything out. Yet that didn’t stop Him. So why should we stop at nothing less in order to love each other? Love is worth it.
Love is impossible in isolation. Isolation is a vacuum and love needs a relationship to breathe. Any relationship brings complications; so it’s your choice. Hey, someone made the right choice or you wouldn’t be here to make your own now.
Lest you think that others are the source of your complications, think again. Relationships merely show us who we really are. They are like mirrors into our own dysfunction, and that is actually part of our salvation, because we probably wouldn’t see it otherwise.
So think about all the complicated relationships in your life today, and thank God for what they show you about yourself. Ask God to heal you and then put your arms around those complications, because the overcoming power of God’s love is in them, waiting for you, and you wouldn’t want anything less.
