Keep It Simple

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

The mark of a great general is the ability to strip things down to their barest essential and then focus. As the head of the home, you are the general. You have to learn how to strip things down to their barest essential. Learn how to take what is before you and simplify it. Imagine your wife comes to you, overwhelmed and stressed out. You should be able to take her problem and simplify it. If your children run to you, you need to be able to take the problem and simplify it.

The ability to simplify the complex is the mark of a great general. Take a direct approach. You and I must make effort to eliminate every form of ambiguity and confusion from our lives. It takes a lot of effort to eliminate confusion. But when you eliminate confusion, you eliminate stress. It is because when you look at life, you will discover that the enemy of success is confusion. God wants you to be successful. I believe you also want to be successful. The enemy of success is confusion and complexity. But the challenge with us as human beings is that we are naturally complex. And it is a misnomer because if your God is simple, why are you complex? The God we serve is simple, so why are we complex?

Naturally, if you leave a human being, the human being will complicate things. If you do not focus on simplicity you will get complexity. Leave a child with his room all arranged and his toys where they are supposed to be. Give the child a few days and in some cases a few hours. That room will become complex; everything will be upside down. And that is how we are.

I have a colleague that used to be a master at complicating things. He has greatly improved now. Back in the days, if I asked him to come up with a plan on how to move an item from point A to point B. By the time that plan arrives, it is a world of complexity. So I take the plan and eliminate all the complexity. And he says, “I did not know that was what you wanted”. We are just naturally complex people. Simplicity, as simple as it may sound, is not trivial. It takes a lot of mental work but that is where productivity is. Strive for simplicity.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, please help me x-ray my life and strip off all the complexities. Help me to strive for simplicity in all things, in Jesus Name.