Sometimes in my rush to get things done, I have a tendency to over-complicate things.  Of late I have had some time-sensitive projects that I am working to complete under the deadline, and this has caused no small amount of stress.  This evening, as I lay in bed with a sore throat, frustrated that I wasn’t getting anything done, I eventually stopped and continued reading a story I have been enjoying of late.  In this story an immortal martial artist decides to put away the cares of the martial artist world and settle down into a normal mortal life to enjoy the experience.  As I was reading, I could feel my own soul begin to relax a little and let go of some of the stress and busy that I have been carrying of late.

This last week I released a new book, Faith To Raise The Dead, and the launch went alright, but not as well as I had hoped.  I have been pondering what to do to enhance book sales, and haven’t been able to figure out an answer.  In the past 24 hours of just being myself and living life, I had two separate conversations that helped answer my question.

These events seem unrelated, and in a way they are, yet both demonstrate moving from the complex to the simple.  Whether slowing down from the hustle and bustle to enjoy relaxing and letting the stress wash away, or to letting go of having to hunt down the answers and letting God simply bring them to me, I believe these unrelated encounters hold a key for this week:  Seek the Simple.

Regardless of what the problem is in life, I believe this week God wants to highlight solutions by way of simple signs, coincidences that guide us, and other omens that we will only notice if we let ourselves.  The Bible says it this way, “He who has ears, let him hear.”  We all have ears, but sometimes we forget how to listen.  Sometimes we don’t remember that the Divine Presence of the Cosmos is right here, right now, guiding our steps.  Psalm 37:23 says, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, And He delights in his way” (NKJV). God enjoys leading us into the right paths, and we can trust that in every situation, God is at work to direct our steps, even if things don’t always work out the way we expect.  This isn’t to say that God always gets His way, but that we can always know that God is working behind the scenes for our benefit.

Whatever the struggles you are having this week, pay attention to the world around you.  Let your attention open up to enjoy the life God has given you, because as you do this, you will notice simple things—a license plate on the car in front of you that matches a song on the radio.  A friend who mentions a book that a coworker told you about the day before.  A billboard that for whatever reason really speaks to you.  God speaks through seeming coincidences like these, and all of them are messages from Him to us.  If we have ears to hear and heed His voice in the mundane things this week, we will find that some of our biggest concerns are solved in the simplest of ways.