Keep It Simple

When I was in college I worked for the chapel setting up and tearing down for worship, as well as running lights and sound. I, like most of the people I worked with, were music majors and in one way or another, we thought we knew everything that went into worship ministry. That included the technology that comes alongside. 


On Monday nights we would have practice and if anything went wrong, and I mean ANYTHING, some of my coworkers would surmise it to be something buried and would hold up practice to dive under the stage so that they could fix it.  


In all actuality, it would either be a bad cable or the fact that something wasn’t on the right setting. That is when I became a “simple” person. If a problem arose, I would try and solve it with simple tactics. I still try to live by the same philosophy - when a problem arises, address the obvious things first.


In the book of Romans, Paul addresses people in this way. I am paraphrasing of course, but he says to love God and love people and the rest will fall in line. 


If we love God, then we won’t want to put any gods before him, take his name in vain, and we will want to honor our fathers and mothers and keep the Sabbath holy because we don't want to hurt The One who made us. 


If we love people, then according to Romans 13:8, we won't want to murder, commit adultery, covet, or steal. If we loved God and others, most everything would fall into line.


I understand that in theory, this is an easy concept to grasp because it is simple. But in all reality, putting it into practice is not so easy. Sometimes loving God isn’t our natural inclination, and from my own personal experience, people are not always the easiest to love. 


I do wonder, though, that if we were to try to keep it simple and care for others and love God the way that the Word spells out for us, if a lot of life would be a little better.

JOE BRACKEMYRE