The Reality and Beauty of Being Simple – Stuart Segall

The journey of my life has always reminded me, whenever I look in the mirror, that I’m a pretty simple person. Nothing particularly lofty seems to be happening above my eyebrows, and no one has ever accused me of being strong. I look for the arms of Popeye, but I see the arms of his girlfriend, Olive Oyl.

Last night, while praying, I came across a scripture that stopped me. I saw the word simple and thought, “Well… simple, Stuart, that’s me.”

Psalm 116 speaks of a God who is gracious, righteous, and merciful; a God who “preserves the simple”; a God who saves when we are brought low; a God who invites the soul to return to rest because He has dealt bountifully with us. It is one of those passages that feels like a hand on the shoulder, steadying, gentle, reminding us that rest is not something we earn; it is something God restores.

What struck me most was that word simple. In Hebrew, it carries far more tenderness than our English ears might hear. It does not mean foolish, and it does not mean unintelligent. It means something deeply human, deeply vulnerable.

“The simple” are those who live without defenses, the unguarded, the honest, the ones who do not pretend to be strong when they are not. They are open-hearted rather than calculating, easily wounded because they are not hardened, people without power or status or complexity, people who trust quickly, sometimes too quickly.

In other words, “the simple” are the ones life can bruise, and the ones God is especially drawn to.

This isn’t a dismissal of those with power or complexity. It’s a comfort for those who feel they have none. The psalmist isn’t drawing a boundary around God’s love; he’s simply testifying to where he met it.

The psalmist seems to be saying, “God protects the ones who do not have armor,” and then he adds, “I was brought low, and He helped me.” He identifies himself with that group, not the mighty, not the clever, not the self-sufficient, but the ones who collapse into God because they have nowhere else to go.

Oh my, that would be me.

This is a verse that honors the soft-hearted. In the psalmist’s world, the simple were not the naïve or the clueless. They were the ones who had not built layers of armor yet, the transparent, the tender, the ones who moved through life without the cynicism that comes from too many betrayals. They felt things fully, they trusted easily, and they did not hide their need.

And the psalm says something astonishing: God preserves them. Not the powerful, not the calculating, not the ones who know how to manipulate a room, but the ones who walk into the world with their chest open and their hands empty.

When the writer says, “I was brought low, and He helped me,” he is admitting, almost with relief, “I am one of them. I am not complicated. I am not impressive. I am just someone who needed help, and God came.”

There is a kind of dignity in that simplicity. It is not weakness; it is the very terrain where God delights to meet a person.

So yes, simple Stuart. That would be me. And it might be you, too. Thank God He came for both of us.

Contributing to many of the resources offered by Plain Truth Ministries, including the CWRblog, Stuart Segall writes from the state of Washington.  He has spent most of his adult life counseling, encouraging, inspiring and uplifting others.