What Makes You Complicated?
The last few months at our Sunday night Soul City gatherings we have been sharing our stories with each other.
Not testimonies.
But our life stories.
All the major events from birth to adulthood.
It has been AMAZING.
Tonight some dear friends were sharing their stories and I got to thinking how truly complicated we all really are.
Yet we want to treat everyone else around us like they are as simple as apple pie.
We are the only complicated ones.
You know that coworker who drives you crazy?
They are that way for a reason. And it’s complicated.
You know that perfectionist who breaks out into hives when you rearrange their desktop?
They are that way for a reason and it’s complicated.
You know that classmate who smells like you should be serving them Thanksgiving Dinner in a food line?
They smell that way for a reason and it’s complicated.
We are all so complicated.
One of the things that makes me complicated is my increasing desire to matter more tomorrow than I do today.
That complication will make me look straight through you in a conversation where I am looking you straight in the eye.
That complication will make me critique you up and down and mentally calculate your skill sets shelf life.
That complication will make me say yes to you knowing full well that I will cancel on your butt if something better comes along.
That complication is also a lie from the devil himself.
That no good piece of crap would love for me to work my tail off for some inauthentic trophy of success and leave a casualty that is my family in the fox hole I’ve jumped out of seeking to be a hero.
This my friends makes me complicated.
So how about you?
You don’t have to dive into the run on sentence nightmare that I dove into…
But please tell…
What makes you complicated?
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
Me putting time into everything else but what really matters. This makes me complicated
Like what?
thinking what others think about me and bad friendships r the main things i can think of. i can always be spending more time in quiet time too
My constant need for affirmation and to please the people around me makes me complicated. My life would be so much simpler if I could just not care so much about what other people thought.
I hear you. LOUDLY.
You must be my long-lost twin.
My desire for success, combined with the fact that I don’t know how to get to ’success,’ and my distaste for pastors who lead their churches like businesses, and somehow they are successful at it. Can I be successful without being an inauthentic tool? That’s complicated.
Wow. That is complicated, in a really not complicated way
Preach it brother! I can relate.
My relationship with my dad is complicated… as in, there really isn’t one. In my head I’ve taken his lack of presence in my life as a child and turned it around for me. I don’t have kids yet, but when I do, I’m going to do everything I can to NOT be the dad to them that my dad was to me.
THat is heavy. Thanks for sharing.
Being a full-time college student, musician, and military veteran at the age of fifty. That’ll do it. Oh, and wanting to go to seminary. Being female. Put it all together, it can be mind-boggling complicated. People don’t know what to do with me. And neither do I, sometimes.
Never. Stop. Dreaming.
Wow… I think that God made all of unique and that over time we have complicated ourselves. My biggest complication is found out of 1 Corinthians 9:22… My call in life is to be all things to all men and I will bend over backwards to try and fill the voids in hurting people’s lives. It is impossible to fill the voids in people’s lives when they themselves are very complicated, only Christ can do that. At times I also feel that I try so hard to be all things to all men, that I present Christ with the leftovers of my time and effort.
Hey Los,
You sent me a twitter message yesterday asking you to send you a message from my phone. I think it was about the twitvid singing rudolph. I tried to, but it just keeps telling me that you aren’t following me, so I cant send you a message. Just letting you know. Not sure if anyone else from the give away was having same problems. Those were some fun posts. Great idea. Have a blessed day brother.
Tabb
Thats complicated
A lifetime of mistakes and constantly trying to impress God into forgiving me for them while not understanding His grace and the fact that he already has.
wow
I am a woman. Haha. Seriously, my mixed family. My constant struggle to want to provide for them and the selfish me who wants them to provide for me. My past that says How could God ever love me? I live it every day. And the constant encouragement that I receive now that says He loves me anyways.
You are right. We are all complicated. Sometimes we are so busy dealing with that, we don’t sit and listen to others who are in the same exact boat.
I’m in that boat with you. You said exactly what I was feeling. Thanks for sharing!
That my father is a pastor, but I’m a Christian anyway.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Insecurity and the fact that I’m always expecting the bottom to fall out…again.
My complication is that I will sacrifice almost anything for respect. It leads to almost every fight my wife and I have ever had. I feel disrespected (even when I’m not), and will explode.
Sounds like my marriage. Youve got a good woman there.
Growing up in the home of a pastor who just got divorced after 20 years because of abuse by the church that led to severe marriage problems – knowing that ministry is what I’m called to but the need to protect my marriage and not repeat my parent’s mistakes I only let ministry in a little bit, but it’s still my passion and where I’m most fulfilled – so I’m always in but not all of the way. Yep, it’s complicated to me too…
for not wanting to be alone/lonely but wanting “me time”.
Are we the same person?
my insatiable need for something fresh and new…. and for that new thing to be the best thing i’ve ever done before.
:: sigh :: … it’s SO complicated.
It is. Name something fresh…
triathlon sprint…. march 2010, wilmington,nc. me and my honey and whoever else we can inspire in spite of the cold. 13 weeks… tic toc tic toc.
i refuse to grow old before my time.
the fact that I doubt every person that says they love me (in any way), and am constantly looking for them to prove it to me and constantly feeling like everyone is lying to me. makes me complicated.
That is complicated. But in a very normal way. I dont even know you and I love you (in a blog reader kinda way) and I know it is hard to feel that as well.
My desire to accomplish, produce, and create bound inside of a deteriorating case that puts limits on me. Today, I have the flu. Third time in two months. Saying no to what drives me today in order to allow me the opportunity to create tomorrow (or 50 years from now). Learning to slow down. ch:
My desire to be real with people makes me complicated. When I try to be authentic with someone, but they are used to fake, insincere people. They misread the situation, try to fix it and I end up wounded, when all I really wanted was to have a real and honest conversation/relationship.
I want to discuss my failures and struggles with you.
Don’t fix me, just listen.
And be real with me in return.
Jen C I can relate. I don’t even waste my breath if it’s not the truth.
What Makes me Complicated….
Well it all began on a hot July afternoon, the doctor said we are ready for this baby…just kidding I will not tell my entire life story.
What makes me complicated
is that I tend to try and find meaning in what others say about me. Wanting others to validate me with their praise.
Also, I search for happiness in opportunities instead of finding happiness in the opportunity of Grace.
This drive to be perfect and to make others proud of me or say that they think I am gifted leads me to never be happy with what I am doing now.
Validation is an area that makes me complicated.
My insecurities and intense fear of rejection.
If I were to see you (Los) somewhere, I probably would not be able to approach you, even though I’ve been reading your blog for years, and know more about you than many of the people I work with on a daily basis.
It’s hard for me to believe that anyone would find me worthy of any interest at all. So it’s very hard for me to connect with people and really be honest about myself.
That’s it. We are having coffee…
I’ll buy.
It’s only a couple hours to the ATL for me (while you’re still around).
dang thats deep
My desire to follow God into Ministry (again) after leaving after 10 years of being used by a church. I know the gifts are therem so is the desire and the expereince but there seems to be no opportunity (last 3 yrs looking). Couple that with the belief that my skills and expereince isnt good enough for places to hire me/let me volunteer despite what I have achieved with God in the past males me complicated.
I need to forget what others will think and focus on what God thinks of me, that is all that matters…
My need for affirmation, struggling with the idea of trusting and having faith in promises that seem far from me, accepting my desert season has a purpose…too complicated to even type out :/
Believing in social justice and seeing the reality of the world.
Depression. And believing God is good at the same time.
At first I thought I didn’t have an answer, which made complicated
Let me just add, what caused me to stick with reading your blog (after finding it quite accidentally) is *authenticity* in our Jesus-loving lives being so graciously shared by your family. I seriously want to avoid the ‘ivory tower’ thing. I feel driven at this point in my life to BE authentic and seek it out as well.
I love our pastor (nearly half my age) who has a quality of humility and openness w/regard to being human. He/his wife lacks some life experience (also, his sounds charmed in some ways), but maybe those of us ‘more broken souls’ can fill that gap as we find our niche there.
THis leads me to my point…I do however, find it difficult as the others in ministry at my church being as authentic as the pastor (who has been there ~2yrs). I see people who get to know folks, draw them in and not stay in touch. I have not jumped on the bandwagon to take over an area that I felt God was not calling me to and a few are different around me as a result. I also see them as not sharing much of themselves and no one wants to dig too deeply.
I have not been a regular ‘member’ of a church til this point in my life (even tho raised in Christian home) and still getting acquainted with what to expect, embrace and all that goes along with church membership. This got really long, but then… I’m AM complicated LOL
Asking friends to keep you accountable and they refuse to step up
Asking a church leader to help you approach another leader about a previously confessed area of sin in their life that has resurfaced and he blows you off
Desperately seeking authenticity and close male friendships but finding yourself more and more alone
Falling into sin because of that loneliness and hating the fact that you can’t seem to feel guilty over it even when you know that it’s a love of God that should cause a hatred of sin and not sin in itself
Because you feel so alone you turn to anyone who shows affection even when you know the mess it will cause.
Even though you feel very alone you’re tired of constantly reaching out and trying to connect with people. For once it’d be nice to have someone reach back to you.
In the midst of a dark night of the soul wondering if God even exists but you manage to encourage and edify people who walk into your life and firm up their faith even as you question your own.
No matter what you achieve in life you think it’s insignificant because you achieved it and it’s not enough so you need to keep driving on to achieve more
The need to control makes me complicated – but at least I am to the point where I realize it.
My constant checking of my I-phone when I am getting up at o’dark thirty to spend time with God.
Something doesn’t add up with that!
But HE lovingly pulls me away from my media crazed mind and lovingly fills me with His Word and grace!
Thanks for your honesty on this blog Carlos.
You rock dude.
Theresa
http://MarketPlanMinistry.com