Simple

Oh, friends. 

For what feels like the first time, I'm not busy. For a year that I purposed to redeem the time or the year, boy has it been tested. But I come to my lack of busyness with confession; because it has both been the first time and because I feel like I'm working tirelessly to fill it, instead of enjoy it. It has been the strangest test of my flesh and it's only been oh, ya know, about a week. But I must be honest on another point as well: moving and relocating is hard and tiring. 

My life is simple. I live life putting my clothes out on the line to dry, plugging the water heater in when I want to take a shower, and I live 15 minutes from anything and don't go there unless it's needed. I have gone through a lot of my belongings and really don't need most of them. I have cried over the loss of some things, and have been excited for the fact that everything has been gutted, like a hopeless house being renovated- all must go, before you can start the work of what must be put in. Must. John Mark Comer in his sermon series on Simplicity, talks about the Center. When we structure our lives around what must be, and should be, at the center, we realize there's much that doesn't need to be there at all. I must say I don't know how to do that at all. Structure a life filled with only the necessities. My life has always been a vivacious game of pin ball. I fight and flee, run and fling- all directions at once. I've always done all the things because they were offered or available to me. And I've enjoyed life that way. Life on the run. 

I'm reading Bob Goff's new book Dream Big and in it He says in reference to giving Jesus the whole room, or all of our life/ambitions/dreams, "Jesus said people would know whose room it is by what happens both inside and outside of it. Simply put, He's more likely to put much of what you've collected in a dumpster and light it on fire than turn down your bed and put a mint on your pillow...If you fill your life with Jesus and operate with love and grace, you'll be in the right place..." Now, that sounds a bit harsh. But I think I need that reality. I want to live simply, because it's there I have both the time and space to see what can actually become of what I have to offer. Reminds me a little of the loaves and fish story. I have to bring what I have and leave it so that it can be multiplied the right way. The simple life isn't always the easy life, I'm still learning. You don't just start living off grid one day and know all the things. 

But maybe I'm learning a bit more of who I am and who He's made me to be in the process. Now I have the option to replace what was in my life with the things that genuinely fit and the things I want to do more of. And maybe, I'm hoping, it'll have a bit more time for the random things too, that would have otherwise been an impossibility otherwise. I haven't reached perfection and I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing with my life just like a whole lot of you, now with the added awkwardness of also knowing hardly anyone or how to get anywhere, but we're doing it. 

So much depth that comes from simplicity, and that I honestly believe can only come from a simple life. Summer evening walks, and rest, and maybe even a workout or two because you can’t find any excuses not to. Reading, listening, writing, breathing. It’s simple.