Returning to simplicity brings relief

I have come to value simplicity. I mean, greatly, and I’ve come to despise the complicated. (It’s the complicated form of religion or way of living that exhausts you and sucks you dry. That’s why Paul warned us about it all those centuries ago.)

Today, I am thinking of all who carry a gnawing fear and anxiety over a child (or, shoot, over your whole brood). I’d like to take the “complicated” out of it and restore some simplicity to give you a little relief in this time of year that can be stressful enough as it is. Ready? ‘Cause here goes.

Whose child is it anyway? Stop right here and think this through.

Was it random, this kid that you got (and the parent your kid received), or was there a Mastermind behind the matchup?

Who knows your kid best and knows what is needed–you, or the One Whose fingers did the knitting?

Who has all the power in this world and beyond to guide and keep your child in the way that he should go?

Is God’s heart for your child destruction or redemption?

And the bottom line, this question–can God be trusted, or can’t He?

If God could keep Jochebed’s baby safe as he bobbed and dipped on the Nile, and if Jochebed could trust the One Who created both the river and her boy…

If God could take that son of hers and set him up inside the palace and then train him by a long, long wilderness season…

If God could use that child-grown-to-be-a-man even though he’d made an awful mistake, and he’d killed…

If God–Moses’ God–could make a bush to burn on an ordinary day and raise him up to lead all of Israel, then this self-same God can do that for you.

For you, for your children, and for mine. I think it really is that simple.

“I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is found in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3).”