Can we talk about simplifying for a second?
What does that even mean to you? Maybe it's your schedule or your stuff or your commitments. Maybe it's more like money and bills and expenses. Or maybe it's even just priorities and planning.
I honestly don't think there are many people out there that love feeling stretched too thin. Or that thrive on busyness or stress. Is there any one out there that can honestly say you are not worried about a single thing? Maybe it doesn't feel like worry. Maybe it consumes your thoughts or time though. Or you keep pushing it away because it does and you just don't know how to deal with it.
Or maybe you have filled up your life so much there is barely room to breath. And you have a list of things that someday you will do. Dreams you want to accomplish. A closet you will clean out. Or activities you want to do when you have time. People you want to spend time with when it's convenient. Maybe it's that box of photos you haven't organized yet because there just isn't time or space.
Things can take up a lot of space in our lives. And not just in our closets or basements. I mean our actual physical material items can take up space in our brains. They can cause anxiety and cause us to shut down or stress out. Cluttered lives often lead us to believe we don't have enough of something; time, energy, and even more stuff. Cluttered lives can lead us to stress eat, stress shop and just downright stress out. Of course not everyone deals with stuff this way. But I do believe that we are all too often slaves to our own stuff. Quite honestly, that is not how I want to live my life. My things should make my life more enjoyable. My things should serve me. My things should remind me of how richly blessed I am because of the Lord. My things though, they can become and do the opposite. They can become idols in my life instead of helping me to see God more. They easly distract me from glorifying God with my one life. And let's face it, the idea of our things becoming idols in our lives doesn't often cross our minds. But it creeps in. Slowly, our things become so very important to us that we desire them more than God himself. We crave more things instead of more of God. We strive for a better way to organize the things we have instead of striving to make time with God a priority. We research and Pinterest and read the news often times before spending quality time with our Creator, the One with whom we can find true rest.
So, I'm going to journey down this road of simplifying. It's a lifestyle. A process. And it is never truly complete. We must choose over and over again, God over things. We must choose to create space in our lives so we can spend the time with our true loves.
We must hold loosely the things of this world. Then we can live free. Then we can live abundantly in Christ, storing up treasures in heaven and stepping out in faithful obedience over and over again.
My desire is to put God above all things with my one and only life. To lead others to Him. To know Him well.
Simplify my life. Declutter. So I can make space to:
Love God. Love others. Serve well. Live generously.
If you'd like to hear more about this, how to practically carry this out in your life and home, please comment, find me on Facebook, or email me. We can do this together!