Seek The Simple

…he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle…John 9: 6
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​Growing up I remember pot-luck dinners in the church basement.  Sometimes they were held for special occasions and events and other times they were for no particular reason at all.  I remember everybody laughing and chatting and enjoying each other’s company. This sweet memory popped in my head this week listening to the daily readings from the Acts of the Apostles about the early church sharing meals and prayers together.  Maybe it was because it was a simpler time or maybe it was just cooks from a small rural community but the food that would show up on those long tables was always beyond delicious.  As I was taking this little walk down memory lane, I remembered a time my mom took a dessert that everybody wanted the recipe for.  Everyone made such a big deal out of this dessert. Mom served it from a lovely glass bowl that made it look extra fancy.  When we got home, she just laughed as she washed the bowl because this super delicious, fancy dessert only had four simple ingredients.  A cake mix, a can of fruit cocktail, a stick of butter and a tub of cool whip.  She said it was the easiest thing she’d ever made but it sure looked and tasted like a big fancy thing.
  That dessert was such a hit even though it was so simple.  We tend to underestimate simple but the Gospel story about the healing of the blind man came to mind as I remembered the story of the famous pot-luck dessert. Did you ever stop to think about how in this story Jesus did something absolutely profound with something as simple as clay and spit?  We are the seekers of the fancy and we’ve become so immune to the simple that we often miss it because we’ve got our heads stuck in the “over the top”.  I wonder how much peace we could add to our life if we were to make it our goal to seek the simple.
This entire Gospel is an episode of the blame game.  It’s pretty easy to get our mind stuck in the things we feel we’ve earned, or we’re owed.  When things don’t go according to our plan we want to know why and find the reason things got messed up.  The truth is, God does some of His very best work in the messy, the broken and the disappointing.  When we hold too tightly to our wishes, we miss God’s plan and the dozens of ways He’s ministering to us and to others through us.
At the beginning of this Easter Season, let’s pretend we are the blind man begging Jesus for sight to see with His eyes and to see His plan and to see His beloved in our midst.  I can be so blinded by my own ambitions, expectations and foolish pride. I’d like to be healed of the bad habit of seeing things only through the lens of what’s best for me.  Lord cover my eyes in clay and spit so I will truly be able to see You in all Your magnificent Easter Glory!
 
A Seed To Plant:  Spend some time this week with this simple prayer.  Dear Jesus, help me see with your eyes.  Heal my eyes and make me aware of the simple ways you walk with me, lead me and invite me to draw close and grow holy.  Amen
 
 Blessings on your day!