Uncluttering Our Lives

A. 1 Thess. 4:11-12. That’s good advice for anyone. It’s the best way I know to keep
your nose clean and prosper in life.
Life has a way of becoming more and more complicated. We all need to take time to step back and occasionally simplify the way we living. Like a garage or an attic, life tends to pick up clutter. Hard to see how piled up and cluttered life can become.
a. One of the best things you can do for your spiritual life. Is to go through the
“attic” of your lifestyle, a couple of times a year. Get rid of everything that does
not contribute, positively, to your spiritual growth. Throw away the things you’ve
acquired in your thinking, that are not contributing to your Christian priorities.
(A) An old hermit nick-named, Homeless Hobbes, often exclaims, “The way
I sees it, sometimes you have to gag on fancy, before you can appreciate the
plain.”
(1) Hobbes had been a high?powered advertising executive before he
“gagged on fancy” and discovered the value of the plain life in his simple
cabin. One day he told his neighbor, “For too many years I ate fancy,
I dressed fancy, and I talked fancy. A while back, I decided to start talkin’
th’ way I was raised t’a talk, and for th’ first time in forty years, I can
understand what I’m sayin’.”
(2) What’s the point? It’s not that the fancy lifestyle is wrong or inherently undesirable. The point is, there are some real values to the simple life that we often fail to recognize until we’ve overdosed on the complications that go with “fancy.”
(1) The very worst disadvantage of the cluttered life is that being at
peace and growing honestly in our relationship with God becomes
almost impossible.
(b) Perhaps there are a few who could manage such a juggling act, but not many of us can do so. God’s work requires us to be engaged in life’s activities, but growing deep roots in God’s character, requires solitude and silence. Deep Spiritual maturity comes best to those who live a plain, simple life.
(2) Acts 20:32.

Spur - 12/29/02 pm