Recently I was helping facilitate a program that trains people to minister in their communities with everyday issues. While the intent of the program is good, the focus of the program is for participants to read many books, watch many webinars and videos, and do short daily devotions from the Bible. The time expected in the Bible is very minimal required to the time expected in all of the other activities. As I listened to participants discuss all of the books in the program and outside of it that they read, I kept thinking “How much are you studying the Bible?” It would be so much more simple and powerful for this program to just use the Bible as the text and learn from it.
Just like our reading habits, there are so many aspects of life that we make complex unnecessarily. We load ourselves down with technological gadgets to do some of our work and then to also entertain ourselves – when we have time away from fixing the other technological thinks that malfunction. Stepping back into simplicity could actually give us a better quality of living.
If we were to garden, we would have healthier diets and spend less time and money going to the grocery store. If we canned what we produced, it would last longer, take up less space, and not use the electricity of freezing. Anyone who has even a few feet of earth, could garden. I know of a doctor who uses hydroponic gardening on the roof of a building in New York City.
Simple entertainment could be reading, arts, crafts, woodwork, board games, etc. – things that would be there when the power goes off and the internet or cell phone tower goes down. These ways of entertainment also provide for us to produce something that either ourselves or others could enjoy. We could even do them with others, such as a group of ladies quilting together.
Simple living is good living – we just have to choose it.
