Living With Simplicity

I have focused my talent and skills to accomplish life with a lot of technological marvels. But, amid greatness (…smirk…) I find pleasures galore in the more straightforward way of life.

A piece of paper and a pen. A selection of memory from the past. My red rubber knife from simpler times. And a host of other things that remind me of “back then.”

Watch the car companies compete with all the technology marvels at their fingertips, and I look backward to my youth of simple transportation. Patchworked together, baling wire holding some parts on, I remember, and I’m not making this up, how nice it was to get into my rattle-trap and roll! Work. Church. Dates. It didn’t matter. I was free to pursue my life.

Computers? Outdated almost as soon as they reach the store shelves. A smartphone is just a computer on steroids! Every year or so, you have to update. Right?! Have-to!

We are captivated by toys, and I know that my desires often ask me to step into those worlds.

But when I want a good cup of black coffee, well, the old ways are satisfying.

Yes. This is my video talking about the good ol’ days of coffee long before machines took over the world.

There Is A Spiritual Message Here

We can quickly get captivated by the tools and technological approach to scripture and life. What was once a simple task of opening your Bible is now complex with all the latest and greatest tools on the marketplace. You can get talked into any number of ways to “read your Bible better.” My first study bible? Satisfied. My first notebooks for sermons. Zippered 6-hole special paper and a pen.

Let the complexity of this world change your old-fashioned habits, and it may be how the serpent in the Garden challenged Eve.

But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.
(2 Corinthians 11:3 NKJV)

The church has become something it never was and maybe was never meant to be. It’s not just modern times, but changes have always impacted how we live, worship, and love along the way of life. Visiting Israel shows me the “stone age” of life where synagogues, temples, and tabernacles were often simple places. The Word was read, praise was given, sacrifices were made at the altar, sin was forgiven, and lives were committed.

Generation after generation, but sometimes there were hiccups.

We could write horror stories about the wrong choices made by some generations, but then God would bring someone out of obscurity. Everything would return to the ways God had planned.

If you check out what the Spirit says to the seven churches of Revelation, you will find that there were things that needed to be righted with everyone. Whether the church was an actual location or season of time (there are some questions), we find they were given time to make things right. Consider the first church, the Church of Ephesus.

“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.
And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars;
and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary.
Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.
Remember therefore from where you have fallen;
repent and do the first works,
or else I will come to you quickly
and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.
(Revelation 2:2-5 NKJV)

Get back to the beginning. You’ll find it’s probably the simpler approach to life. When you’ve stepped away, it’s up to you to come back. God’s calling. Listening?