Lenten Blog Series 2024: Still Focused: Week 3: “Simple Focus”: by Dcn. Jacqueline Kimble

 Lenten Blog Series 2024: Still Focused: Week 3:

“Simple Focus”: by Dcn. Jacqueline Kimble

 

February 28, 2024

“Simple Focus”

When I was approached to complete this assignment, I immediately thought to myself, did “Rev. Dr. Nephew Philor” send this message to the wrong person?  What did I have to offer?  Truth be told, I struggled with where to even start.  It wasn’t until last Wednesday morning while listening to my daily 7 am prayer call, Pray on Purpose, where the Word was being shared by fellow New Jerseyan Minister Tracey Newman, that the picture began to come into focus.  As I listened to her share what God have given her, she referenced Psalm 116:6 “The Lord preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.” And the Holy Ghost intervened and said, Just Make it Simple. I now had some focus. The word simple stayed with me. Webster defines the word simple as easily understood or done, presenting no difficulty. It’s plain, basic, or uncomplicated. But how could I make this plain, and simple, and there it was, K.I.S.S.

Now, to get to where those letters were derived, I had to go back, way back to Saturday, August 27, 1983, in Hartford, CT. It had been Freshman move in day at the University of Hartford, my parents and sister had excitingly helped me pack up my little life and now it was time for me to further my education, make new friends, have new experiences and expand my horizon, simple, right?  Well, the first night at UHA as it is affectionately known, it rained like cats and dogs, as the thunder clapped and lightening lit up the night sky, my roommates Patty and Melanie seemed to be settling into our “new home” with ease, but I instead cried all night, right along with the pouring rain. It was simple, I didn’t like the place, I was out of my safe element, I was afraid, and I needed to go back home, to my “former” simple life. You see on the fourth Sunday morning I would be preparing for church to sing to God’s glory in the alto section of the Inspirational Choir, at the New Hope Baptist Church. I wanted to be stepping in formation down the center aisle with my choir members in perfect harmony to “They that wait on the Lord, shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like an eagle, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint” Instead I was in unfamiliar territory. When I called my mom that Sunday afternoon, I wasn’t exactly honest about my first night. I told her I was adjusting and shared that of all the things I could have left home, I left my Bible. My mom promptly packed up my Bible along with a few other items and sent them to me on a Trailways bus and a few hours later, I had the simple yet most powerful tool I could have ever needed. The GOOD Book. Now I won’t say that I had read it from cover to cover but I had sense enough to know where my help came from. That book told me that I could do all things through him who gave me strength, it told me that God would never leave me or forsake me, it told me that though I might stumble, I would not fall, it told me that I could cast my cares on him, it told me that the blood was shed for the redemption of my sins, that I was more than a conqueror, and if I trusted in him with all my heart and leaned not to my own understanding, that if I acknowledged him that he would make my path straight.

Things began to change shortly thereafter, I started to let my guard down, let go of the fear and uncertainty and leaned into campus life, made new friends, and some of which I still have today, and even found a good Baptist church! It was during my time at UHA that I came to love the words crafted in Psalm 91. Simple words of God’s protection, comfort and a reminder that he is faithful in his works for those who love him.

Fast forward to my senior year and one of my most intensive courses facilitated by the uniquely intelligent Professor Charles Canedy, Associate Professor of Marketing. During one of his lectures, he introduced a term that has stuck with me all these years later, K.I.S.S., the abbreviation for “Keep It Simple Stupid” which is a design principle which states that designs and/or systems should be as simple as possible. In short, don’t make things complicated. Hasn’t God told us the very same thing?  He left us simple instructions in the sixty-six books about faith, hope and love. None of which is complicated if we just follow the instructions. During this Lenten season of forty days, a time of preparation, prayer, and abstinence it is our opportunity to go deeper with God, reacclimate ourselves with the instructions by spending some quiet time focusing simply on God.

You see God has already done all the complicated work; creating the heavens and the earth, light and darkness, the sky and the seas, dry land, the sun and the moon, birds and fish, animals and he said they were all good but when he crafted man and woman, he said it was very good. He gave his greatest creation, dominion and simple instructions, to be fruitful and multiply, tend to the garden and not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Lent is a time to declutter, remove the complications we often create and the distractions that cause us to falter; what I simply mean to say is just get out of the way! Refocus on the simple, let us adopt a deeper unwavering mustard seed faith. Has anyone looked at how small a mustard seed really is? Let us have confident expectation that if God said it, he is not only willing but able to do more than we could ever ask, think or imagine, we just need to cast our cares upon him, and love one another as he has loved us. 

Take some quiet time to restore your mind, give rest to your bodies, and shift your atmosphere, reconnect with the Spirit.  Remove all the transitory things of life and think about those things that are honest, pure and just.  During this Lenten season let us abide in him because he is everything we need and in doing so, we will live life in abundance. Let’s take God at His word, it’s simple, give it over to him.

And, I have a new definition for K.I.S.S……...Keep It Simple Saints!