I’m learning a lot about the power of simplification lately. Teaching a 9-year-old daughter to play golf and a 12-year-old son to shoot basketball, I’m always seeing my instruction get in the way of their progress. There’s a delicate balance between correcting the fundamentals and not paralyzing them with too many details. They both have a simple thought I can take them back to when I can tell I’ve over-instructed. Reese doesn’t waste time. Two bad shots after a ‘dad tip’ and she asks me “can’t I just go back to thinking about rhythm?” For Gabe, it’s even simpler. Look at the rim while you shoot (truly innovative stuff, I know).

Two things amaze me about this. First, how quickly it makes a difference, and second, how quickly I seem to forget. Our faith often follows a similar pattern. When we walk by the Spirit, we start to notice our actions naturally reflect God’s nature. We feel joy and peace, show kindness and gentleness to those around us out of a genuine love, and patiently have faith in God’s goodness.

Then we watch a Presidential debate and judge the participants and worry about our future. We scroll through Facebook to see who is bragging about what, thinking about how much more modest we would be if we had what we don’t want to admit we are jealous of. We see a misguided teenager at the grocery store and thank God we had better parents than they have, say a pray that our kids don’t turn out like that, and mumble about the cost of groceries thanks to those clowns in the debate.

Strangely enough, we become irritable and argumentative with the next person we talk to. By the end of the day, we are asking God why we aren’t experiencing the peace that He promised if we walk by His Spirit.

God never promised to give us what we want. He doesn’t even get everything He wants. Just look at us! He does offer us the desire to see Him get what He wants and the Spirit to help us do our part.

As Ben says, “the world is gonna act like the world”. We can’t change that. But we need to let God handle the world and try our best to walk by His Spirit so we don’t join it. How we do this is simple enough: Look to the Spirit while you walk.