Devotion: The Greatest Quest

By: Feston Konzani

“This is all that I have learnt: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated”.  Ecclesiastes 7:29 (Good News Bible)

God created man in His own image and likeness. All that He is, he placed the same in man.  God is plain and simple.  This does not mean that God is easy and unassuming. When He created man, he also made him plain and simple.

You don’t have to be a qualified aeronautics engineer to know that a plane can fly any more than you need to be a medical doctor to know that a human body can be sick. You surely do not have to be fully conversant with human anatomy to know that when thirsty, the body needs water any more than you have to be a computer engineer to know how to use one. You don’t have to be a fully qualified metal fabricator or a blacksmith to know how to use a knife.

Any of the above can be known and be used by anyone without prior knowledge or technical know-how.  This is because the complexity of its existence has been simplified.  But that does not mean it is easy to fly a plane, to know how or why the body need water, to know how signals are encrypted and commands are translated in a computer or why metal is harder than wood or grass.

So when God made man in his image plain and simple, it does not mean that neither the creator nor the creation is easy.  It is simply because the complexity of his existence had been removed and was simplified.  It simply means that in the image and likeness of God who is plain and simple, man was created.

God is straight –plain, and simple-straightforward and man was created to be the same way, straight and straightforward. That which is straight simply means it is neither crooked nor twisted or perverted. A straightforward speech, action or attitude simply means it can be seen, done and understood by anyone and everyone. A road that is straight or plain simply means someone, somewhere; for some reason took ample time to remove by digging or otherwise anything that would make the same rough.

A speech that is straightforward means that although the subject matter is complicated, due care has been undertaken by the speaker to use words, examples and analogies that can easily be understood even by the unlearned. This does mean not that the subject is in itself easy; it is just that the complexity has been simplified by choice.

God, by choice, simplified life and existence not that life was or is an easy thing but rather that He had already taken the time to remove every complexity out of it.  This was according to the riches of His mercy and goodness.  David knew and understood this simplicity that by the Spirit of God was led to write: O LORD, our God, your greatness is seen in all the world…..It is sung by children and babies …when I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars which you set in their places – what are human beings that you think of them?  Mere mortals that you care for them?  Psalms 8:1-4 (Good News Bible).

The greatness of the great God is seen in the simplicity of his being and in all the creation that He has set in place. Even children and babies are able to see and even sing about it.  How simple can simplicity be or how plain can plainness be if it’s not this plain and simple so much so that even children are able to see and sing about it?

However, simplicity does not mean easiness.  Renowned universities and higher learning institutions were and continue to be established to study or try to understand its complexities.  The galaxies, the times, the human body (anatomy), mind (psychology) and many other attributes of this creation have and continue to be studied.  But you don’t have to be an intellectual to see or know the physical existence of these things.  All the complex simplicity of creation declares The Glory of the complexity and simplicity of The Lord Jesus Christ for nothing else that was made, was made but by His Glorious Name.

Man’s greatest quest has been trying to better himself and to prove the authenticity of his existence only to find that he is living a lie.  Self dependence away from God is nothing but an illusion.  One of the greatest and wisest men, Solomon once wrote, “I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before Him,” Ecclesiastes 3: 14 (Kings James Version).

By trying to add something to what is already perfect, the simplicity changed and the result was destructive.  How can anyone perfect the only perfection? One has to be more than perfect to do so. Man, being imperfect and finite wanted to perfect infinity and it is and will always be an illusion. Engaged in an imperfect quest, the imperfect man ended up gaining imperfect knowledge of himself and everything else was inverted.

Yes, we have more medical doctors, yet more diseases; there are more economic experts, yet more poverty and more organizations, yet more inequality.  We have more, beautiful and bigger churches yet more sin and godlessness.  The result of man’s greatest quest to define his existence seems to be more elusive now than ever before. Instead of realizing the fruitlessness of his actions, man is trying harder, digging deeper, build bigger and higher than the highest mountains, yet all his actions continue to take him further and away from the very purpose of his existence which is simply to have fellowship with his creator and rule over the creation as mandated by God.

The continuing sad truth is that while everything is falling apart, the word of God is continually proving itself to be true. We still chose to ignore the Word of God and neglect its truthfulness. The effects of the greatest lie ever told are so deeply ingrained, rooted and established in the human psyche, so much so that as it was in the beginning in the Garden of Eden, man continues to believe a lie about himself, his habitation and above all, his creator.

His eyes are blinded, his understanding darkened, his perception twisted and his life wasted away by meaningless pursuits. Theo centricity has been replaced by ethnocentricity.  As a result, man simply exists instead of living.