Good morning. I will take good advice from any source, as long as it is of good intention and is consistent with what I perceive to be the will of God. Good advice may come to us from the kept and guarded words of great thinkers, from the lips of trusted friends, or even from the innocent musings of children far too young to have experienced enough to make their thoughts jaded or sly. Unfortunately, for me at least, too often the best advice comes my way and passes by without much thought or concern. The value of that advice only becomes known when later circumstances bring the words to mind and they point out what I could have, or should have, done.
Henry David Thoreau is remembered as one of those great thinkers. He is especially famous for his thoughts from his time living on the north shore of Walden Pond. By the way, he credited many of his best thoughts to a woman who lived near by, a former slave named Zilpah White. She was a woman who had come to understand the worth of living in simple ways. One of the thoughts gleaned from her was, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” He also credited her with planting the seeds that came to fruition with, “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail.”
It is hard to argue with that advice. I wonder if we have come to a place where piling on details by the hundreds and thousands is considered the height of intelligence, if not wisdom.
In matters of faith I would say that the more simple we can make it, the better. Confusing ceremonies are not necessary. Mysterious rituals are not required. Elaborate channels of command or levels of access are never needed. Jesus put such things very simply when He said, “He who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” Matthew 10:40
Do you have a Bible? You have what you need to study, to learn, and to know. Do you have a heart? You have what you need to pray, and to pray intimately with the One who loves you. Do you have a mind? You have what you need to think things through and to understand what God has determined that you should know. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Never let anyone suggest that you are incapable, or that you need more, or that you will never be good enough. God has given you all that you need, and that is as simple as anything could ever be.
Vern