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Simple Life or Abundant Life In two and a half years, Real Simple, a newly launched lifestyle magazine, has grown to 1,200,000 readers. Noticeably different from the other magazines it shares shelf space with, Real Simple always features a simple photographic image, soft colors and little to no text but the masthead. It’s a visual oasis from the cluttered newsstand images of half-clothed thin bodies, large clunky headlines and bright colors. The stories found in Real Simple are as … um ... simple as picking out a good pair of house shoes, to making scrumptious soups or decorating your bathroom. Why is the message and look of Real Simple connecting with and drawing readers away from 20 other magazines with a proven look and editorial appeal? The answer is, again, simple. People are looking for breathing space in their cluttered and complicated lives. It’s why yoga has steeply risen in popularity in the Western hemisphere. But although people are looking for escape, and finding it (everywhere from yoga to the movies to extreme sports), most are only looking for a temporary fix. After all, no one actually wants to spend 24 hours sipping lemonade and making potholders. That’s why we allow our lives to get cluttered up with overtime hours, soccer practices, spinning classes and eating out every night. Life in 2003 is anything but simple. And it’s our own faults. We are busier than ever, working longer hours and making it difficult for ourselves to spend time with family and to grow personally and spiritually. I’m 25 and working on building a career at a start-up publishing company and find the first thing to go when I’m hitting deadlines and feeling stress is my personal time (which includes prayer, Bible study, Sunday school lesson preparation, time on the phone with my parents and even time spent preparing for marriage with my fiancé). It’s easy to sacrifice what you depend on the most. It doesn’t have to be that way. The fact is many of us work just to support our lifestyle. If we were content with less, we could enjoy a greater quality of life. We already know that having faster cars, convenient microwaves, handy cell phones and instant Internet have little to do with our happiness or quality of life. Human nature is notoriously hard to satisfy. We’ll always want more choices, more money and more stuff. That’s why the “simplicity” counterculture is touting the virtues of a life lived simply—however, it’s a message being delivered in the language we understand best: media (books, magazines, Web sites and television shows). The answer they all give? You don’t need books, magazines, Web sites and television shows to be happy. Just go to the park and play ball with your kids or read a book on a blanket in the grass. Live simple. Be happy. But as wonderful as a life lived simply is and feels, what the simplicity counterculture fails to offer is an eternal perspective. As I Corinthians 15:19 accurately describes, “ If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” Ultimately, if your pursuit of happiness is limited to this life on this planet, you’ll never be truly happy. So why do Christians often share the same mindset of other Americans when it comes to the ideal lifestyle? The socio-political revolutions of the 60s brought with it the expectation of being happy and demanding that right. Christians bought into the idea and have thus left behind the biblical principle of setting our affection on things above (Colossians 3:2). We’ve gotten so busy building our little Christian kingdoms and homes here that we’ve forgotten Jesus’ call to use this life only as a springboard into an eternal one (John 12:25). I guess we all need constant reminders and nudges that this world isn’t our home and that we shouldn’t expect total happiness here. With that in mind, here are some lifestyle characteristics that will help you live simply, but more importantly, well. ■ Control your spending. Always, always, always live below your means. When you get a raise, don’t buy a new car. Save that money. The only way you’ll work to live instead of live to work is by needing less than you have the resources to buy. ■ Give, generously. We all know the biblical principle, “he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6), but don’t think giving means just money. Regularly clean out your closet and give away clothes you don’t wear often. Volunteer your time to someone in need. Give a word of encouragement with a phone call. Just give of yourself in big ways and small ways in every opportunity that you see. (Having lots of money isn’t bad, but thoughtless affluence—buying lots of stuff without ever stopping to think whether we should—is.) ■ Pray without ceasing. Sure, it sounds like Paul had an idealistic view of being a Christian in 2 Thessalonians 5:17, but the reality is you can pray without ceasing if you use your “idle thought time” to breathe prayer. Next time you’re waiting for a meeting to start, think about the goodness of God. When you’re waiting for a table at a crowded restaurant, pray silently for your spouse as he’s sitting there. ■ Make God preeminent. It goes without saying that God should have preeminence in your life. Matthew 6:33 promises that we don’t have to worry about anything else if we actively, daily put forth an effort to bring about God’s will in our life. ■ Put family first. Don’t ever place work over family with the misunderstanding that you have to in order to provide for the family. God will honor you honoring your family by ensuring you always have provision. The fact is, although we constantly complain about being stressed out and many of us dislike our jobs, overall we’re a pretty happy bunch of Americans. The Harris Interactive Poll, released May 21, 2003, said Americans are far more optimistic and have much higher life satisfaction than Europeans. Fully 57 percent of Americans are very satisfied with their lives, compared to an average of 21 percent in Europe. The reason I cite the poll has nothing to do with Europeans and everything to do with how those Americans classify their satisfaction. I wonder if those Americans are satisfied with their income, housing, cars and clothes, but have broken homes, no spiritual commitment and a lack of eternal perspective. I wonder how many think it’s more satisfying to spend Sunday mornings on a boat than it is listening to life-changing truth in a local church. I wonder how many attend church with their family, how many eat dinner together and talk about their days. I wonder how many regularly give to others out of the abundance they’ve received. I wonder if their satisfaction settles for less than what Jesus came to give us: abundant life (John 10:10). I’ll take abundance over simplicity any day. ninetyandnine.com © 2003, Cara Baker --------- Cara Baker is the associate editor of ninetyandnine.com. She complains about being stressed out a lot, but when it comes down to it, she knows she’s extremely blessed and satisfied with a wonderful life and family that God’s given her. |
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