John 5 -- My Complicated Life

John 5:39-40
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Why do I try to over complicate God? Why do I assume that God isn't quite big enough to deal with my junk; my past? When I am hanging and meeting with guys that I disciple I never doubt that God can work in their lives. On the other hand though, God completely forgiving me?... No way!
So as a natural response, I bury myself in the word, read a million books, go to church 12 times a week, and do kneeling meditative prayer (on one knee only, of course). Doing all of this in some wild attempt to create some spiritual high I can ride to the next crash that resembles a self-loathing, doubt-stricken drought that leads to an attempt to recreate the same story all over again.
What good does this depressing cyclical story do? None!

In a way (maybe not spot on with context but fairly close if not :)) I feel Jesus was implying this to the Jews in Jerusalem, "You keep trying to read your way to freedom and somehow you miss what that book is saying will set you free." -- God makes it easy for us... faith in Jesus. Faith that Jesus is Lord, that He is bigger than our problems, that He is greater than religion, that he is the answer to our disastrously cynical routine.

We fill ourselves, and our time with what we think will bring us closer to God and forget what God tells us will bring us closer to Him: Obedience that leads to faith in Jesus as our Lord.