The Simple Life

I'm taking a break from my Advent series because I'm just too tired to think tonight. I've been wanting to post on this topic anyway since I'm going through Becoming A Woman of Simplicity by Cynthia Heald in my ladie's Bible study and have really loved several quotes she uses. By the way, the timing of our study over the Christmas season was not accidental:)

"We Christians must simplify our lives or lose untold treasure on earth and in eternity. Modern civilization is so complex as to make the devotional life all but impossible. It wears us out by multiplying distractions and beats us down by destroying our solitude, where otherwise we might drink and renew our strength before going out to face the world again." A.W. Tozer

So, what does that mean? How do we simplify? I read a book called Better Off by Eric Brende and in it he tests the hypothesis that modern technology has actually made our lives worse, not better. He and his wife move into an Amish community for 18 months and during that time make some interesting observations. They found their sense of community was much greater when they relied on their neighbors to survive and prosper. They found they didn't miss technology as much as they thought they would, and they found great pleasure in the simple life.

Am I suggesting we all become Amish, or become The Village as Big D has been suggesting for a while now to several families in our church? No, I think we can all simplify where we are in life.

"Our Lord did not teach detachment from other things; He taught attachment to Himself. Jesus Christ was not a recluse. He did not cut Himself off from society, He was amazingly in and out among the ordinary things of life; but He was disconnected fundamentally from it all. He was not aloof, but He lived in aother world." Oswald Chambers

So the idea here is that the more connected we are to the Lord, the more disconnected we become to the things of the world around us. The more in Him we are, the more focused we are on spiritual things, the more we are meditating on Scripture, the less we are weighed down by the busyness of life around us. Maybe not everything will get crossed off our list each day, but if we put first things first, then that's ok. We don't want to spend our lives majoring on the minors. The main thing in life is that we can know God, everything else we spend time and energy on should be measured against that.

"Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." (John 15:4)