Keeping It Simple

I am a big advocate of keeping life and the activities of life as simple as possible. Productivity is at its greatest when simplicity lends a hand. There are places and circumstances in our life where there is no way around complexity. Our world just doesn't allow for complex problems, rules or agendas to be avoided. However, our approach to them can always be as simple as possible.

To me, when we keep it simple in our heart and in our heads, God is then given room to do what He does best; and that is, well, everything. People tend to think that they have to do it all; they think they have to conquer the world. But that is simply not true. God is the one to do the heavy lifting, the actual life changing activity, the overarching, backbreaking, stress causing work that we always try to do on our own.

Now, I will admit, I am not perfect with this idea. Many, many times do I have to remind myself, or receive the reminder from God, that I need to back off and keep it simple. I do not have to tackle the entire problem or accomplish the entire goal in one fell swoop. It's not my job nor is it my assignment to "do it all". My job is to do the little things, to stay obedient, to maintain faith and pursue God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength. He, then, will respond with the strength I lack (and beyond), the effort I'm missing, the wisdom I always seem to be without, the productivity I can't seem to reach and the portion of the assignment meant for His hands only.

Recently, I was thinking about how to attain a fairly "small" issue - WORLD WIDE REVIVAL. I was challenged by a Pastor and friend of mine to help figure out how to motivate our church congregation to dig in and pray more passionately. That is when the idea of keeping it simple really took shape in my mind. Many times we had discussed keeping it simple, however, when the challenge came during this one particular discussion the words, "It all starts here first" came to mind. The idea of WORLD WIDE REVIVAL seemed way overarching and impossible. There is no way we can achieve that without causing a little stress in our lives. However, the idea doesn't seem so luminous when we consider that God can do something huge with our simplistic obedience. All we really need to do is paint the picture of possibility and help people understand that through simple obedience, faith and prayer world wide revival could start here first.

Joshua collapsed the walls of Jericho through simple obedience as he led Israel on a march that culminated with a loud shout and a bunch of crumbling walls (Joshua 6). When King David killed Goliath he did it with a simple sling and a stone (1 Sam 17:50). Jesus' disciples and the apostles of the early church were simple everyday men. They were not special by any stretch of the world's imagination. Yet God changed the world through their obedience and simplicity. They loved the Lord, did what He commanded, loved people and prayed with faith.

If the church can understand the power of simplicity and begin to realize that no one individual or church has to carry the entire load I am confident, then, that more people would be willing to exert the effort to pray in faith and obedience. As a result God will respond in our city which will then become a light for the rest of the nation, which will become the salt of the earth; sparking world wide revival and a global outbreak of Jesus focused worship. If it can work with WORLD WIDE REVIVAL then I am certain it can work in our daily challenges, issues, problems and agendas.

So I encourage you to keep it simple and trust the Lord to take care of the rest. Remember, His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matt. 11:30).

Blessings in the name of the Lord Jesus!