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Published: 21 May 2021

Many years ago I came across a book by Richard Foster titled, “The Freedom of Simplicity.”  It resonated with me for two reasons.  1) I don’t have capacity to keep a lot of things going at the same time and 2) Trying to keep a lot of things going at the same time is not a healthy way to live.  I knew people that had “a lot of irons in the fire” and it seemed like I should be like them.  The problem was, all those irons want a lot of attention and my humanity was often overwhelmed with the details.  Life is complicated enough without adding more things to the mix.  Foster made it quite clear that complexity is the trick of the enemy to keep us distracted from the main thing—our life with God.  The busy life is often extolled, honored and celebrated.  Our culture looks up to people who are on the go, in the know and on a roll.  But that way of living is not the way to life.  Simplicity of life does not mean a life of navel-gazing.  (Navel-gazing is “excessive contemplation of oneself or a single issue, at the expense of a wider view.”)  Simplicity means the freedom to see the wider view with less clutter.  Complexity is the enemy of eternal life.  It distracts us from the Kingdom.  Sometimes life is complex, no matter what we do, it comes at us without regard for our plans or schedule.  If we are not single-minded, it will be very hard to navigate our way.  I hope you can join us Sunday for Paul’s vision of simplicity.  He counted all things as loss for excellency of one thing—do you know what it was? 

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Published: 14 May 2021

Some stores have become so accustomed to complaining that they have Complaint Departments!  I feel bad for those who have to work there every day. Who do they complain to? Complaining is so entwined in our culture that we don’t even see it as sin anymore. Sin!? Who said anything about complaining being sin?    Moses seems to have implied it in Exodus 16 when he said, “You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD…because He has heard your grumbling against Him.” Our passage for Sunday is Philippians 2, Paul wrote, “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Does this mean we should never express when something is not right? Does this mean we should never bring up problems? Does this mean we should all be “wall-flowers?” We’ll talk about it more on Sunday. I’ll give you this to think about; why do we complain? Is the customer always right? What drives the cultural “right to complain?” How does complaining affect our mission? The English word complain means “to express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something.” Are there constructive ways to do that? This is a bigger deal than we may realize.  If you are unhappy with this blog, please address your complaints to 800-TRY-.