Pure Strength

Prov. 13:⁷ (MSG) “A pretentious, showy life is an empty life; a plain and simple life is a full life.”

F. Schumacker says, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.” The sad truth is that any fool can cause a war, any fool can cause trouble in a marriage, and any fool can cause chaos in your closet. Anybody can create confusion in an office – anybody! But it takes courage, strength, and genius to create simplicity. If you enter a home and the arrangement or the setup is simple, believe me, the people behind it are courageous and wise. It takes a lot of effort to put things in order, have you noticed this about life in general?

Your house, your room – it takes a lot of courage to look at that closet that is intimidating you and organize it. Some people do not even want to look at their closets anymore, they just want to go in and come out. It takes a lot of courage to arrange things and put them in place. The simplest things are not necessarily the weakest things. The simplest things are the strongest things.  Again, the simplest things are the strongest. When you put things in their simplest forms, they exhibit their truest strengths.

One day, in a conversation with one of my daughters, she was telling me that to keep and maintain natural hair is more difficult than to just perm or wear artificial hair. But you must agree with me that ladies who can maintain their natural hair are actually more beautiful, true or false? Please understand this – I am neither throwing punches at people who do not wear their natural hair nor am I advocating that ladies go natural. What I am saying is, the simplest is the strongest! It takes effort to order things and it takes even more effort to keep things in order. It takes effort to put your house in order and it takes a lot of effort to maintain that order. When we are talking about living a simple life or learning simplicity from Jesus, we are not talking about living a lousy or mediocre life. We are talking about living life as it ought to be.

Beginning tomorrow, we will delve into scripture and outline the lessons in simplicity from each passage. I encourage you to ponder deeply on each scripture reference even as you open your heart to the Holy Spirit. He, Himself, will teach us how to simplify our lives, in Jesus Name.

Prayer: Lord, equip me to stand tall in simplicity in every situation, in Jesus Name. Amen