I love the joke where the Primary Teacher asks her students, "What has a bushy tail, runs up trees and stores nuts?" A confused child answers, "I know the answer is Jesus, but it sounds like a squirrel to me."
From Primary days on up I was probably conditioned to rattle off the basic answers. Or, if I wasn't sure where a teacher was going, I felt safe sticking with "Keep the Commandments," "Pray," or "Read my Scriptures" types of answers.
My Seminary youth do the same thing, provide me with the quick and basic answers. Sometimes we chide these responses as simplistic or standard. But, the funny thing is: they are also kind of tried and true.
Brent and I both agree that living those daily basics really does help us personally. It may be simplistic but I generally feel like I can't get too far off track when I'm consistent with doing the "little things" spiritually.
As a Bishop, Brent has observed that in most situations where members struggle with faith or make choices that end up wreaking havoc in their life, he can almost guarantee that they aren't doing the basics. They won't necessarily correlate their problems and issues back to when they stopped reading their scriptures (for instance) but Brent sees it often enough to note the connections.
For me, staying on a good course spiritually is a little like getting in shape. It takes so long to get "in" shape but in no time at all I can get "out" of shape! I can workout consistently for months and then just a couple of days of slacking or eating poorly, and boom, I lose momentum quickly. So, if the simple daily things will benefit me in the long run, both physically and spiritually, then I'm a-okay with simple! Who needs complexity anyway?
