Simplicity is the secret to seeing things clearly. After being saved, a Christian may not think clearly for a long time. But a Christian ought to see clearly, without any trouble, from the very start. You cannot think a spiritual muddle clear; you have to obey it clear. In intellectual matters you can think things out, but in spiritual matters you will think yourself into cotton wool.
If there’s something in your life on which God has put pressure, obey him in that matter. Bring your imagination into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and everything will become as clear as day. The ability to reason it out will come afterward, but reason never helps us see. We see like little children. When we try to be wise, we see nothing: “You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children” (Matthew 11:25).
The tiniest thing we allow into our lives that isn’t under the control of the Holy Spirit is enough to account for a spiritual muddle, and all the thinking we do about it will never make it clear. But the instant we obey, we see. This is humiliating because when we are in a muddle, we know the reason is the temper of our mind. When our natural power of insight is devoted to the Holy Spirit, it becomes the power of perceiving God’s will, and the whole of our life is kept in simplicity.
