It's Not Complicated

It's not complicated: God leads, we follow. A Christian pilgrim's reflection on humbling our spiritual adolescence and walking the narrow path Jesus sets, one step at a time.

NOTES

Trace Pirtle

6/28/20262 min read

a group of people walking down a path in a park

I went to "Sunday School" this morning. A local university is one of my favorite places to go, simply walking with Jesus.

I appreciate beginning lessons with a reminder of the fundamentals–the milk before the solid food. This is how the Holy Spirit teaches me His Sunday School lessons. And it makes sense, even when I sometimes roll my eyes and say, I know that! But there is a method to His sanity disguised as madness.

After all, we learn how to spell cat before catastrophe. We learn basic math before we can engage with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. And we learn early in our Christian walk that God leads and we follow. “It's not complicated,” says the Sunday School Teacher.

But somewhere in our spiritual adolescence, Sunday School changes. We begin to think we know more than our Heavenly Father. When the Sunday School Teacher says “Do this and don’t do that”, we cross our arms and defiantly shout "Why?" and demand an answer that fits our cultural narrative. We know best because our public schools and universities taught us that we do.

And because spiritual adolescence has one foot in childhood and the other in adulthood, we try to have it both ways. We want to remain in God’s good graces and co-exist with the world. We think there is a simple solution–find a local church and a Bible translation that matches what we want and need. Brilliant! This really is simple! So we mistakenly think.

But the Sunday School Teacher says, “I never said it was simple. I said It’s not complicated. Read what I said through the Apostle Paul to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:16-17).”

The spiritual adolescent within us must make a choice: humble ourselves, realizing that our Father does know best, or go our own foolish way and suffer the Prodigal Son’s hard lessons.

Because I’ve been on the Prodigal Son’s path, speeding through life going the wrong direction on a one-way street, I’ve decided to humble myself and do it God’s way, not my way.

Every step I take with God leading and me following, I hear the Sunday School Teacher saying, See, it’s not complicated!”

I pray that you have an uncomplicated day and are abundantly blessed by God.

Simply Walking With Jesus

Simple Journey | Simple Gospel

Every Step With Him.

"For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

- Matthew 18:20