"Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 18:4)
One of the wonderful qualities children have that we as adults need to regain is the simple quality of “simplicity”. Kids have a humble and non-sophisticated approach to life. Grown ups seem to take the simple and make it complex. You see people living highly involved lives. Their life is complicated and out of order. There is a striving over solving the most basic problem. We tend to specialize in details because we are taught how to analyze and categorize. But after we tear everything apart we forget how to put that problem back together again. Life doesn’t have to be so tangled and perplexing!
Awhile back the stereo in my car went on the fritz. It sounded distorted and muffled. I had installed the unit myself, so I knew how the wiring was, etc. I started fooling with the basics and got nowhere. Then I started to take it apart and got further frustrated. Finally, I started taking out the dashboard, so I could get further into the repair of this thing. Major dead end. AHHhhh!! So, with that dejected “I struck out big time” feeling I buttoned everything back up and sat back frustrated into the bucket seat. But it was weird. Instinctively I reached out my hand and adjusted a knob on the stereo and voila! Guess what happened? Tunes!! Perfect sounds, booming bass, tweeters tweeting, and a happy (but tired) passenger. See how complex I approached the problem? The answer was so simple, and I could have saved myself from a big headache that day. Simplicity!
Life doesn’t have to be so hard. Jesus taught us how to live a simple lifestyle (Mat 6:19-34). And when things get complicated, we are to know that the battle belongs to the Lord. (Exo 14:13-14; 1 Sam 17:47) He can untangle every knot. Before we assume the worst and get in over our head, we are to simply lay out our problems before the Lord and let Him take care of the complexity (Isa 37:14). We can rest and wait patiently on the Lord until He solves the problem that He has allowed in our lives for our testing and growth. Could this life of simplicity really be true? Does it really work in this wild world we live in? Why don’t you try it and see?
Louie