Complex vs Intricate

For many years, I was aware that my mind was a busy place.  I knew it was often very hard for me to take things at face value, but instead I would process "inputs" to my thinking through the multiple dimensions of my mind.  What do I think about that input from a physical perspective? Does that differ to my spiritual dimension views? How does that make me feel (my emotional dimension)? If my physical dimension thoughts differ to those of my spiritual dimension thoughts, which is right?  Have I misunderstood the spiritual aspects, or are they right, and it's just different to what you would expect in the physical dimension?  In future posts, I hope to look at some specific examples of this interplay.  For now, I'm just going to look at how this interplay has, in the past, lead me to doubt the strength of my faith, and how in-fact it can actually be a joy.

As I was becoming progressively actively aware of the interplay of my thoughts, I ended up feeling like I was just over-complicating things unnecessarily (more on over-complicating things in the post to follow after this one - spoiler alert, I actually don't like unnecessarily over-complicating things if it can be helped).  I often used to wish that I could just accept things as truth, or reject things as false.  Often I believe things are true or false, and may have strong emotions attached to them, but there can also be plenty of nuance or grey areas associated with them.  Very few things in my mind are 100 % certain, there's always a potential "way out" of a belief or thought.  An extreme example (please bare with me here, it will make sense by the next paragraph), and one that is very quickly dismissed by majority of people without much thought, is crazy idea that the reality we experience could be a simulation, like the matrix or being in the Sims game.  I won't go any deeper in to that thought process here, but just highlight it as one of the many things I've pondered before (but for clarity, I don't believe to be true).  In future posts, I may explore that thought process, and explain the various conclusions I have come to which have kept me believing that God created this world, and that I am known and loved by Him.

Given the amount of thought and processing that can go in to seemingly pointless and abstract thinking, you can understand how I would conclude that I was unnecessarily over-complicating things.  That combined with verses such as Mathew 18:2-4, which instructs us to have child like faith, and many places where we see examples of people clinging on to faith and God's promises when all seems logically lost, used to lead me to a place of believing I just wasn't trusting God enough.  I could easily feel like I didn't have a strong enough faith which would allow me to trust God, and not have to understand things (there will be more to come in later posts on the topics of control, understanding and faith, and on anxiety).

I spent a number of years wrestling against this, whilst also simultaneously knowing Psalm 139:13-14 

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

This is a lovely psalm, really powerful and personal. However, I had a hard time believing it could apply to me, finding it hard to reconcile my over-complicating things with having a faith.  However, one day at a church prayer meeting, I felt God encourage me to swap the word "complex" with "intricate".  This word change has profoundly change the way I have thought about my mind.  It hasn't stopped it from being a struggle some times, but it has certainly helped me to experience the joyful aspects of it also (which I hope to share in future posts)

The Divine Watchmaker

Why has this helped?  Well, the word intricate seems to convey a certain sense of beauty, whereas complex can convey a sense of dread or something unwanted.  Further, when I thought upon the word intricate, one of the things that came to mind was a watch, one of the types where you can see all the little cogs and mechanisms working away.  One of the common analogies used in discussions around science, creation and faith, is that of the Divine Watchmaker (a topic for another time).  I believe the Divine Watchmaker (God) created an incredibly detailed and intricate universe in which we have the privilege of living in, and this same watchmaker also created me with my mind (Psalm 139 again).  Further, we are all made in the "image of God" (Genesis 1:27), and this realisation helped me to believe that this Genesis passage could actually mean "all".  I wasn't a problem child with too many questions or thoughts, I was a beloved child of God, showing a different aspect of Gods character to the aspects other people reveal. As it says in Romans 12:4-6:

"For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us."

I can therefore be free to enjoy the good parts of my mind, and thank God for the gifts which he has given me, and believe that there is good to come from it. As can you with whatever amazing gifts and beautiful mind God has created in you.

photo taken from here