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Spiritual Discipline #6: SIMPLICITY

For most of us living in Calgary, our lives are nothing if not complex. Our time is consumed by demands from without, be it from children, spouses, employers, church leaders, and from within – those compulsions to use our time to accomplish or enjoy all that we have become convinced are essential to living life as it should be lived. As a result, we fall prey to what John Ortberg describes as, “hurry sickness”, a malady that expresses itself in the illusion that “hurrying will buy us more time.”

The complexity of life is also found in our desire to have more. We are never satisfied, at least for long, with what we have. Just one more pay raise, a newer car, a larger home, a more exciting vacation!

And worst of all, our children pick up on this very quickly. Steve Holloway writes, “We push our kids to participate in more sports and more activities and more advanced classes – why? Because we want them to have more than we did.”(1)

But Holloway continues: “Do we ever question whether that would be a good thing? Might it not be true that our children would be better off with less? Might it not be true that we would be better off with less?

According to Richard Foster, the spiritual discipline of simplicity helps us come to grips with three attitudes:
          - everything I have, be it time or possessions, is a gift of God
          - everything I have will be taken care of by God
          - everything I have is available to others

Thomas Kelly describes “ten controlling principles” for an outward expression of simplicity. We will begin September with five of them. In October, we will include the remaining five.(2)

1. Buy things for their usefulness rather than for their status. For example, consider your clothes. Most of us have no need for more clothes. Stop buying to keep up with the latest fashions. Buy only when new clothes are needed and buy practically.

2. Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you. Learn to distinguish between a real psychological need and an addiction. Eliminate or cut back on the use of addictive, non-nutritional drinks: alcohol, coffee, tea, Coke, etc. If there is any form of media (TV, radio, magazines) that you realize you cannot live without; you need to get rid of it. Refuse to be a slave to anything but God.

3. Develop a habit of giving things away. If you are becoming attached to some possessions, consider giving it to someone who needs it. De-accumulate. Get rid of that mass of stuff that clutters your home and life. Give it away.

4. Refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry. Modern propagandists try to convince us that we must obtain the newest model of this or that because it features some new ability that will make our lives easier. The truth is that time saving devices almost never save time. Remember point number 1.

5. Learn to enjoy things without owning them. Our culture puts so much emphasis on owning things. “If we own it, we feel we can control it; and if we control it, we feel it will gives us more pleasure” (Foster, 93). This idea is an illusion. Borrow and share with others. Remember that we don’t really own anything, we only manage it for God.

Over the next two months, re-evaluate your life. Look at how your time and money is spent. What does that reveal about your priorities. And remember, it is not enough to say that God, or family, or serving the world is our priority. We must show it in the way we use our time and money.

(1) Holloway, Steve; “Spiritual Disciplines: Simplicity”
(2) Kelly, Thomas; “The Discipline of Simplicity”