Simple, But Not Easy

When my sons were in elementary school, one of them came home with several new vocabulary words he didn’t learn at home or at school. When I heard him use his new words, I stopped him and made sure I had heard him say what I thought he had said and then, I told him that his language wasn’t appropriate. My wife and I had a quick meeting on how to punish him for his language. (Yes, he knew his language was inappropriate. That was one of the things that made it fun for him. He knew it was wrong and he was enjoying shocking us all).

After a while, I took him up to my study and said, “Son, I know how it feels when you need to say something and you just don’t have the words. I know how frustrating it is to want to say something but not have the right words. The great thing about the English language is we have a word for everything. As someone who makes their living with words, I’m embarrassed as your father that I haven’t done a better job teaching you the beauty of the English language. We’re going to fix this today.”

I handed him my Oxford Annotated Dictionary. Yeah, that one, the fifteen pound behemoth of pages containing everything ever thought about the English language.

”Start copying,” I said. “I don’t want you to ever be in place where you don’t know the right word for the right moment.”

To this day, he’s complimented by his peers on his tremendous vocabulary.

As you can imagine, I spend most of my time working with words. When I’m not speaking, I’m writing and if I’m not writing, I’m usually speaking. My days are filled with words. Writing them down, scratching them out, thumbing through my thesaurus and dictionary trying to find just the right word that captures the moment I’m trying to describe. (Yes, I’m old school. I still use printed versions of both resources). For that reason, I’m sensitive to how words are used in conversations and written articles. I’m uncomfortable when people use one word when they really mean another.

For instance, “anxious” and “eager” are typically misused. “Anxious” means we are looking for bad things to happen. We get “anxious” when we can’t figure out how to pay our light bill. “Eager” means we’re looking for good things to happen. We’re eager for the holidays to arrive. How many times do we hear people use the word “anxious” when they really mean “eager?”

The other pair of words that are constantly misused are the words “easy” and “simple.” “Easy” means without effort. “Simple” means without complications. Something can be simple to understand but hard to do and something can be complicated but still require little or no effort to accomplish. My grandson loves to put together Lego toys. Legos are simple, but not easy.

Sometimes we make this mistake in our discipleship. We will say something is “easy” when we actually mean “simple.” It’s easy, we’ll tell someone, just relax and trust Jesus. Yet, all of us know it’s just not that easy. Dying to self every day isn’t easy by any means. It’s simple. Jesus does for us what we can’t do ourselves, but it’s not easy.

Dr. Frank Stagg was my New Testament professor at Southern Seminary. In his sermon celebrating his retirement, he summed up his career by quoting John in Revelation when the angel told John to eat their scroll. According to John, the scroll tasted like honey in his mouth, but when he swallowed it, it made him sick to his stomach. “This has been my life,” Dr. Stagg told us. “I read the words and I love their beauty, but when I try to live them, they tear me in half.”

Turning the other cheek will do that. Loving your enemies will tear you in half. Praying for those who persecute you will make you break out in a sweat. The words of Jesus are beautiful and rich. The greatest things ever said by anyone have been said by Jesus. We put them on bumper stickers and t-shirts.

Everyone knows what Jesus said. Few people live the way Jesus taught. It’s simple, but not easy.

I think this is a problem. People begin following Christ thinking all of their problems are over. They think being a Christian will be easy. That’s not true. In most ways, following Christ is more difficult than just following our whims. Jesus refuses to leave any part of us outside of His redemptive touch. Things in our past we’d rather forget, Jesus brings them back to us so He can heal us from yesterday’s pain. He calls us to difficult quests because the struggle refines us. Following Christ isn’t easy. Walking with Him will require everything we have every day we live.

If following Christ only brings pain, then why do it? Because it’s worth it. Only when the seed dies does the new life sprout from the sacrifice. Don’t be fooled. There’s pain in not following Christ as well. It’s the pain of waking up one day and realizing we’ve lived for nothing. The seed dies just the same, but nothing happens in the dying. We just die.

The beauty of the gospel is it is simple. A child can understand it. The challenge is the gospel isn’t easy. The cross is our constant reminder. It’s in dying we find our lives. It’s easy to say. Hard to do.

Simple means without complications. Easy means without effort. Yes, the gospel is simple, but don’t ever think it’s easy.

This essay was first posted in Scot McKnight’s newsletter.