Simplicity

We have been going to a church in Chiang Mai for the last month and love it. The church is called Abundant Grace and it is a bilingual church. Every song is sang 2x, first in English and second in Thai. The announcements are done in Thai and translated in English. The sermon is given in English by the pastor (I am told he’s from Singapore) and is translated into Thai by the pastor’s wife (who is Thai). A majority of the church body is made up of Thai people, maybe 20% of the church is foreigners. The pastor is very whitty and makes a lot of jokes which I enjoy, but most of all, this is a church with a passion for sharing Christ. Another thing that I love about the church is that the children’s home that ½ of our children from the school live, attend Abundant Grace also and seeing them before and after church is such a joy. Love those kids. Honestly, they each own a piece of my heart (which is okay since I know that God wants me to feel that way).

Yesterday's sermon really stuck with me and I decided to share a bit of it.

The title was “The Power of Simplicity.”

The pastor shared that his son came to him and asked 4 questions this week:

Question 1: “Dad, how do you get a giraffe into a refrigerator?” His dad's amuzed and confused response: “ummmm, cut it into 1,000 pieces?” His son’s response: “NO dad, you open the refrigerator, put the giraffe in and close the refrigerator.”

Question 2: “Try this one, Dad, how do you get an elephant into a refrigerator?” The pastor is getting smarter and says “open the refrigerator, put in the elephant and close the refrigerator.” The son’s response: “NO dad, first you have to open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe and then put the elepahant in and close the refrigerator.”

Question 3: “Dad, there is an animal conference in the jungle and EVERY animal comes from all over. Which animal doesn’t make it?” The pastor’s response is an exhausted “how am I supposed to know that?” The son responds “dad, I told you that you put the elephant in the refrigerator, so it’s obviously the elephant!”

Question 4: “You come to a river and it’s a river known to be full of crocodiles. How do you make it across without being eaten by the crocodiles?” The pastor is tired of saying I don’t know but mutters an“I don’t know.” The son responds: “all the animals are at the conference, so you just swim across!”

I imagine in his own way the son gave his dad a "DUH" sort of response and went back to playing. :-)

The moral of the story? Kids think simply. As we get older, we tend to complicate things. A lot of times, we complicate things unnecessarily.

The more simple we become, the more effective we become. Extra baggage always costs you something extra (just like going to the airport and having too much baggage like I did on my way to Thailand, hehe). It’s better to walk in the power of simplicity.

Simplicity allows us to:
focus better
be more creative
produce greater and lasting results
eliminate unnecessary stress.

Moving here has “simplified” my life in some ways where I have learned to live more simply. However, my schedule is not simple at times. I am reminded to try not to over complicate things and keep them in their most simple, purest form. Being surrounded by kids forces me to do this as I have to keep things simple when I try to teach. However, I find freedom in the simplicity of things. I feel more creative and more driven when I step back, de-clutter my thoughts and focus on what God has me doing right now and what my purpose is: to show Christ to these children.

I know that simplicity can be a simple thought but it’s a thought that is often forgotten and covered in cobwebs and seems to become complicated.

I hope that this inspires you to take a moment to simplify your life :-).