THE POWER OF SIMPLICITY

I have always loved reading Thomas Hardy's works for one simple reason, he creates characters that are true to life and that are given to beauty, love and nature. I have read Gabriel Oak as a man I can easily let on as part of my life. He probably is one of those characters one would just simply fall for in Far From The Madding Crowd. I think of Tess in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge. One of the things I find interesting about Hardy is that he keeps his work as simple as simple (for lack of words) and yet weave a plot that is as interesting as any other read from a complicated plot structure say of many of Ngugi's work. Strangely, he still maintains top position when it comes to English writers. I sometimes just cannot get enough of Hardy.

The reason for saying this is the fact that we have made life a hard thing to live. We have made rules that give us only hardship in implementing whatever we always set out to do. We forget that we are not created to live miserable lives and therefore make everything around us hard to ever grasp even the very simplicity of it. When I think about Hardy's characters, I see in them a simple natural simplicity. It is something that will endear you to the nature of Oak and Tess, that will make you revolt to the conservative nature of Everdene and Angel, that will make you see through the madness of Alec and Troy. There is aways a hardness and complication we put about our lives that only works at destroying us.

This brings me to something. God has granted us a lot of stuff. The birds in the trees will soothe us with their beautiful voices, the trees will give us nature's most beloved green, the seas and lakes give us a breeze of freshness, the sky in its blue state gives us a simplicity of how peace can really easily be achieved, the dark sky brings hope of rain, the starlit sky gives us reason to marvel at God's intricate design of the universe and space, the planetary system makes us wonder at how great our God really is.

The point here is that, however much we want to complicate life, make it full of mazes, kill the beautiful designs and make a whole mess of intricacy come out of it, God is still open to a beautiful existence between us and nature. God really does speak through nature and He tells us a lot. He told Adam and Eve that they had to eat from the garden and that all that had been created was theirs. This was a deliberate attempt at saying 'This is yours to see how much I love you, how much I am concerned about you, how much I treasure you, yet, you are certainly above all this that I have created'. The beauty of thinking about simple things is that they actually make us better people, looking at things from their simple state and not taking them beyond what they really are.

God wants us to think about simple things. His word is as simple as it is because it is straight to the point. He wants us to respond to a call, a call to obedience, a call to love, a call to share this world with many others that have not received Jesus. God wants us to believe in the things of everyday life, because it is through them that He actually shows us how marvelous He is and how His design is beyond us. Yet in all there is a message: Do just as I have done and show the world how beautiful it is to relate with the maker of all this.

I believe in simple things, with all my heart. I do not think that the Gospel is a hard thing, that Christianity is tough living, that it is hard to build values that are godly, that it is hard to experience what God has purposed for me. When I look at what He's done, I know He's just beginning a beautiful work that no one will ever bring to completion, except Him.

So, take a look around, think of all that's around you, think of the spirit and motive behind their being and existence and think of the hands that molded them into what they are. Only then will you experience the power of simplicity. Only then will you understand the universe has no hardship. Only then will you know that life is worth living. God is simple and wants you to have a lovely and beautiful experience of a life with Him. Don't throw it away just because you made it hard for you by failing to see simple and bare facts that He's placed before you. It's all around you. It's up to you to see it. It is up to you to use it for God's glory.

God richly bless you!