“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” (E.F. Schumacher)
Simplicity is key to the well prepared and well lived life. The more complicated your life becomes the harder it will be to control. That goes without saying, doesn’t it? Why then do we all heap upon our souls cares and worries that ultimately don’t concern us and don’t help us prepare? Most of us spend our days devoting our energy and wealth to things that, in the final analysis, don’t matter.
Wise preparation, on the other hand, demands that we prioritize that which is most important and lay aside that which isn’t. Godly simplicity is the solution that will bring order to our messed up, out of control lives. Choosing the simple life begins with the process of separating the proverbial sheep from the goats; selecting the practices that have value and sending away those that don’t. Such careful choosing and refusing will begin to make your lives simple and your preparations more successful.
As Schumacher wisely reminds us in the parable above, the choice to live a simple life will take real courage. The inertia of life moves us to accumulate more and more. Our culture’s market driven, consumer mindset, continually forms us more and more so that our lives are bursting with the need to grab after more and more. Simplicity is a choice to stop that cycle. It is the ultimate step toward “get off the grid”. It is a determined stride in the direction of less. Simplicity is the courageous move toward an undisturbed mind. The surprising reality is that the man who has less will often live a far fuller life than the man who accumulates in excess. That is because the simple life is a life that chooses quality over quantity. It is a life of peace and order. Begin today to make the courageous and wise movement toward simplicity.
This Day in Church History
April 17, 326 AD – Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria dies. Alexander is not as well-known as his famous disciple, Athanasius. But Alexander was one of the chief warriors in the Early Church’s fight for its life against the arch-heretic, Arius. Arius taught that Jesus Christ was not fully divine, but was a lesser, created being, inferior to the Father. Arianism’s teachings are mirrored closely by those of the modern cult, Jehovah’s Witnesses. Alexander was the first to identify and act to stop the doctrines of Arius. He excommunicated Arius, starting a firestorm that ultimately led to Emperor Constantine calling the Council of Nicaea in 325, which gave us our Nicene Creed, the Church’s great statement of the Doctrine of the Trinity and of the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ.