Freedom of Simplicity

In the past eight years, Matt and I have been involved in several small group bible studies. Some of the books we read were "The Freedom of Simplicity"-by Richard Foster and "Making Room for Life"-Randy Frazee. It has taken this long for me to start understanding these concepts. We have been stripped and willingly letting go of the "NOISE" in our life. God showed me a minor glimpse of the freedom this past week while I was rearranging and decluttering our living room. Very minor but decent analogy. Hang in there with me...

For those of you who have been to my home, we have a big space that is(was) used for dining, living, playing, television watching, surfing, wrestling, football, everything. Well, this past week I had a day that I couldn't take all of the noise anymore. There were WAY too many things going on in there! Like our lives, way too many things going on in there! There was no focus. No relating, just chaos and noise. Kinda like our lives sometimes!

When we first read those books, the authors were mentioning some pretty radical ideas. Things like leaving the "rat race" and a major slimming down of your activities(ours and the kids). One of them also, mentioned this group of people called the Bedouins. They are a people that lives and moves in the dessert. Nomads. Everything they own and everything they do can be packed onto a camel and transported in no time, flat! Matt developed a love for that type of life. Me on the other hand, I did not develop the same liking. I like my stuff, my house, my security...

Well, since we moved last summer, I have really started to think in the Nomadic direction. So much stuff that we think we need. No we don't!!!!
We think that we need these "things" to help us be more free...oh contrare! Ditch it! Give it away, sell it, give it up for the more important "things".

So, in removing somethings from our living room, and stripping down the amount of activities going on in that one space, I learned that God wants me to be in a place in my life that it is simple, room for focus on Him!

I took the tv out, the toys out and cinched together the furniture to make a smaller, more intimate place to gather and talk and relate. We still have the dining room in this space but that makes sense to me. And we can still bring in the laptop to watch movies together, but it is SIMPLIFIED! No, we can't fit it all onto a camel...baby steps! :) Anyone up for a garage sale?