Beyond Complexity, A Great Simplicity

IT is a shibboleth in our time that human experience is incredibly complex. Viewed in this way, each one of us appears infinitely complicated, the product of multiple conditioning factors extending back generations before we were born. Our world has become increasingly fascinated with probing this complexity, as if it had meaning in itself. It would sometimes seem that we're duty-bound to accept as a given the pointless purposelessness that appears to dominate so much of human life. Yet something in us knows that to make peace with this picture of pointless complexity is to accept living without peace in a state of fundamental confusion. Our intuitive sense tells us that life as a welter of conflicting personal egos just isn't the way life is supposed to be. Then we become more ready to listen to what the Bible tells us of God's great reality and His purpose for our lives.

With utter candor and complete simplicity, Christ Jesus said of his own life motive: ``I do always those things that please him''1 -- his Father, divine Love. Throughout his life Jesus was always about the work of Love, always about what he called ``my Father's business.''2

When we're moved and touched by Jesus' example, we find Christ -- the spirit of God, which animated the Master -- moving and touching us. In the words of a poem by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science:

And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea

I see Christ walk, And come to me, and tenderly,

Divinely talk.3

What does Christ, the spirit of Love, say to us today? Christ speaks to us of the need to live in obedience to God -- to serve Love, to honor Love, to live Love. Being about our ``Father's business'' in this way doesn't just give a psychologically satisfying purpose to our lives. It brings us into the very presence of the infinite person of God, whom we can call Father and Mother.

Serving Love, being Love's obedient expression, is truly natural to God's children, dwelling in His love. Growing into this consciousness of the simple but utterly profound presence of Love, we're moved increasingly to serve God. And not just when it's convenient but at all times. We find Christ, Truth, to be the impelling and compelling spirit of God, animating our lives.

Then we discover that the real need in any situation is not to calculate its complexities as best we can, define our options, then manipulate things to our liking. It is to yearn to know how to live Love in that situation. That yearning is rewarded with the wisdom that comes from on high. Feeling Love's blessing, we know that we actually dwell in the presence of Love. We feel the certainty that we're indeed the loved of Love. This is the simplicity that lies at the very heart of true being. The more we seek and find it, the more we know that it is really there for us.

We feel less overwhelmed by the complexities that appear to dominate so much of daily life. The confusion that flows from the conception of man as a finite personality separate from God begins to fade away. We begin to find our authentic being in God. And we find the salvation and human effectiveness that come from living as His dear children, always hearing and obeying His voice.

1John 8:29. 2Luke 2:49. 3Poems, p. 12.

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