For years I’ve had a sign in our living room reminding me to do my best to lead a simple and quiet life. When we first got married it was a sign that said “It takes very little to lead a happy life.” In recent years it’s a new sign that simply says, “Simplify.”
That’s always been my goal. It wasn’t something that one day I decided I wanted to work toward. It’s just always been something that I desired – a simple, quiet life. Oh I wanted it to be a life that had purpose and direction and a sense of accomplishment, but not at the expense of simplicity. I wanted a life where the things that are most valuable actually received the most time and attention in my days – my family, my personal walk with God, the relationships and ministries that God led me to do.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of my favorite verses is I Thessalonians 4:11.
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life
and attend to your own business
and work with your hands.
In the crazy hectic pace of our modern world, that’s a difficult goal to achieve. Especially in our western culture where more and bigger and better is our mantra. From the world’s point of view those are the signs of success. But not from God’s.
This January I’m going to once again focus on simplifying my life. Weeding out the things that are distractions from the things God really wants me to be doing. Trying to see my life from God’s perspective, and not the world’s.
The idea for one of the ways I’m going to do this actually came from Pinterest. I randomly ran across this page the other day. It’s a 30 Day Minimalism Challenge. It’s a way to eliminate some of the clutter that fills up our homes.
I don’t know the person who originally posted the 30 Day Minimalism Challenge, but I like them! I’m not going to follow their list exactly, but through this last week of December I’m going to make my own list using some of their suggestions and adding some of my own.
Then in January this will be one of the ways I’m going to simplify my life… again. It’s funny how the clutter and busy-ness keep creeping back into our lives when we’re not looking. But for me it’s worth the effort to keep working at that simple and quiet life.
May 2018 be a year for each of us that is centered simply on the things that are truly most important.
Related Post: It Takes a Lot of Work to Lead a Simple Life