Need for Simplicity

Ecclesiastes 7:29, "See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes."

We make our lives more complicated than they need be. I was thinking today about how many people are employed in jobs only because human nature is to crave complexity versus simplicity.

Take the Christian faith. One of favorite authors JC Ryle said, "I wish to be as broad as the Bible, neither less nor more." How much more effective would the Christian faith be if all Christians lived by this motto? Millions of dollars are wasted in arguing over areas of the faith that the Bible is not crystal clear on. Seminaries are constructed to defend these doctrinal differences. In a class that I took at a seminary, my professor joked when discussing the mode of baptism, "This is what we call a theological controversy. Or in other words, job security for guys like me."

The tax code is another example. If you were designing a tax system from scratch would you ever dream of it being 70,320 pages long? I was chosen at random a couple of years ago for a line-by-line audit of my full tax return. There were some questions during the audit that came up where my auditor was confused as to what the tax law was. And how could you not be? A tax code that started with 400 pages in 1913 is now 176 times more complex.

In health care, 40% of the money that goes into the system never comes out. The middle consumes it- administration. That makes no sense. It is estimated that we spend over $700 billion per year on excess administrative costs. It would cost less than $200 billion per year to cover all the uninsured.

As humans, we are naturally predisposed to make our lives complicated. It is part of our fallen nature. But one of our greatest needs is to seek simplicity daily. John Piper in a sermon that I watched online recently proclaimed, "We never outgrow our need to hear the gospel." It is a simple faith. Question #1 in the 1647 Westminster Confession: "what is the chief end of man? To know God and enjoy Him forever." We could spend our whole life asking God to help us fulfill this.

The cares and clutter of life will consume us and render us ineffective if we allow it. I have some practical steps for simplifying life.

1. Time with God as the first priority of every day. Read and meditate on His word. Write down God's promises to you and commit them to memory. Keep a prayer journal where you record requests and answers to prayer.

2. In your work, focus on doing a few things well. Recently, I have kept a list of 4-5 things that I want to accomplish that day. Eliminate or decrease distractions. Set aside an hour each day to return phone calls and emails. Crave simple focus. Don't multitask. My wife- Amy- and I were watching a PBS program about the ineffectiveness of multitasking. The program showed the declining academic results at Ivy League schools because so many kids are using smartphones or laptops to surf the internet during lectures. Retention suffers dramatically when we don't give a task our full attention.

3. Set aside a few hours each day for relationships. Whether it is connecting with friends, family, neighbors or acquaintances, strive to give undivided attention to the relationships that you value. For me, 6pm- 8pm is this time daily.

4. Purge, purge, purge. Purge things out of your life every day. Possessions that are choking up space in your home need to be given away. Make it your motto in everything you do to find the simplest way to live. Don't sign up for activities that you don't value greatly. Don't be afraid to say "no". The good is the enemy to the great.

5. Simplify your health- being healthy usually comes down to 3 things: eating good foods but in less quantity; exercising 5 hours per week; and managing stress well by getting the proper amount of rest and keeping short accounts with God and others. Romans 12:18, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." Romans 12 is a simple approach to the Christian faith. It wouldn't be a bad idea to read these verses every day for a month so that they are imprinted on the mind and heart.

As always I preach to myself first.

For the simple life and faith,

Ashley Hodge