September 13, 2007

• Simplicity – A Gift of God’s Wisdom

  Some years back soon after I came to Christ, in my late teens and early
  twenties, I came in contact with "Debbie" in a local youth ministry. I
  don’t believe I have met anyone who loved the Lord more and lived what
  she knew.  Yet Debbie had a severe case of “Down’s Syndrome” and was in
  her mid-teens when I met her. The years have passed and her health
  problems brought her down. I was in town days before she passed and she
  still remembered me. She is now with the Lord she loved so well.

  Sometimes its hard to know how to communicate with folks with Down’s
  Syndrome but somehow Debbie and I could talk and it would make sense. 
  If I listened, I could hear her heart for Christ and her desire to
  serve him. While it was true that she did have difficulties, she not
  only wanted to serve Him in whatever she could manage to do, I could
  actually see the Lord helping her to do them.  I think you can get the
  picture of what was happening.

  Now it came about that she would ask me questions about spiritual
  things and I could tell something was going on upstairs yet it was
  difficult for her to comprehend things if they were too complicated.
  Yet once you were able to get the information in, she had it and
  remembered it.

  I learned something very important.  Simple is good and the Lord made
  Debbie to teach us something.  If Debbie couldn’t understand it, it
  isn’t likely worth knowing or it isn’t yet understood well enough by
  the one telling about it. You see, the message of Christ and God’s word
  has to work for the “Debbies” out there, too. He saves both the
  “brainiacs” and the “Debbies” and everyone in between.  Now if you know
  your scriptures well, you’ll turn immediately to I Corinthians 1 where
  God talks about all this and chooses the simple things of this world to
  confound the wise.

  Gradually, I began to understand that our study can benefit from this
  as well.  When I began to leave more of “the stuff I’ve learned” behind
  and let God do the speaking in His word, I learned a lot more. The day
  finally came around that I really put this to the test as I needed to
  know some things out of Revelation.  Would the “simple” approach work?
  Indeed, it did and now I understand it better than I ever had before
  which is not to say I understand it all but it sure does make a lot
  more sense especially with the Old Testament.

  So, what I’ve learned is this. If you like, tell me now all about the
  foreknowledge of God and his control of history and his plan of
  salvation from the foundation of the world and the verification of
  Jesus’ credentials that He is the Christ, and all about the church
  fathers and on and on.  Once you’ve done that, then explain it to
  someone like Debbie and have them be able to not only understand it but
  also use that information in their walk with Him. If you can do this, I
  know that you understand what you’ve told me. If you can’t, go back and
  work on it until you can. It does not matter what you know. It matters
  what others can understand.  Blessings, Mr.Vee

  • 12:07 pm
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