Let simplicity reign

I have told many people that Africa taught me a beautiful simplicity, and I have tried very hard to carry that in the front pocket of my heart ever since. In some sense I have been successful, while other attempts I have made crashed and burned. Richard Foster has a chapter, which I plunged into this morning, on simplicity. And, aside from the fact that he quoted my favorite verse amungst his insight, he makes very profound statements about what pure simplicity looks like. For instance, he highlights the distinction between asceticism and simplicity and also shows the idoletry of both. Asceticism because the beholder cannot accept anything from GOD. And simplicity when it becomes the center of your life instead of an outward reflection of GOD at your core.
The whole thing reminded me of a few conversations I have had with friends in the last year. Both of my friends live abroad (one in Ukraine, one in Uganda) and they both remarked about how they originally thought that being a "missionary" meant scrounging for money each month. Both have come to recognize that when abundance is here it is not a bad thing; you have not hoarded anything...GOD might simply have wanted to bless or enable you (this is asceticism). Personally, I am very grateful that GOD does provide when the proper time comes, asceticism would not suit me.
Simplicity does...but, as Foster points out, it can be used in very detrimental ways.
"We deceive ourselves if we believe we can possess the inward reality without its having a profound effect on how we live. To attempt to arrange an outward life-style of simplicity without the inward reality leads to deadly legalism" (80). Foster spends a great deal of time unpacking the necessity of simplicity blossoming from the inside. He talks about how to direct your life in this way, and how it can lead to a much deeper relationship with GOD because your time stops revolving around distracting gadgets, materials, finances, and status. When simplicity is conceived in the heart you are actually set free as opposed to being bound by responsibility and pride with possessions.
This is in TOTAL contrast to those who take on simple behaviors, but do not have a simple soul. I imagine this is like the driving a stick shift vehicle without knowing what you are doing. Like me...recently my boyfriend taught me to drive stick shift. I was REALLY nervous (and I made sure to remind him of that every ten seconds); he explained what was happening as I shifted gears, what the clutch was doing for the engine, and why it is necessary to use it when braking...all that jazz. I picked it up in about 20 minutes (and...I am going to brag...I only stalled 4 times); had it not been for his careful tools I promise you I would have grinded each gear down as smooth as a dinner plate. Someone who does not actually know what simplicity is, or understand how it feeds the soul, will stall, stop, sputter, and eventually burn out the behavior. They will most likely go right back to being overwhelmed and busy, and since business takes your mind off of GOD it happens to put you right back in the enemy's ranks.
I am, in no decent way, paraphrasing the whole chapter...Foster makes other AMAZING points, but I was challenged to look deeply at where my life is right now and compare it to other times. To arrange my priorities around the positive things I have learned, and simplicity is undoubtedly on that list. My favorite verse is Matthew 6:21: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." You can read any heart, any culture, and language with this verse. Somewhere else in the bible it says, "Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks." And the wisest women in my life said "actions speak louder than words" throught my childhood. I tie it all together inside.

"Of all the disciplines simplicity is the most visible and therefore the most open to corruption. The majority of Christians have never seriously wrestled with the problem of simplicity, conveniently ignoring JESUS' many words on the subject. The reason is simple: this discipline directly challenges our vested interests in an affluent life-style" (85).

"By themselves the spiritual disciplines can do nothing, they can only get us to a place where something can be done" (7).