Keep it Simple

A Bible. A church family. Maybe a songbook and a catechism. And plenty of time. Can you think of anything else you absolutely need in order to walk with and grow in the Lord? Other things can be beneficial, of course (like good Christian books, which would be a big bonus item on the list!). But we really don’t need all that many resources, events, activities, and plans in order to bask in the gospel and move forward in the faith, do we? Indeed, there is a tipping point at which addition eventually becomes subtraction! A kitchen, or a tool shed, can only be so full of equipment before the clutter begins to be unwieldy and inefficient. Now, with more gear, you’re actually getting less done!

The same is true with our Christian endeavors. Too many resources, activities, and irons in the fire is a recipe either for burnout, or for hop-skipping from thing to thing without ever drinking all that deeply at any of them. Either way, you end up with diminishing returns – more activity, but less fruit. Which is better – to dip your toe, week-to-week, into a dozen different books, reading plans, devotionals, studies, small groups, podcasts, and blogs? Or to drink steadily, deeply, and (sometimes) even slowly at the same life-giving streams at which the saints have found their thirst quenched for century upon century?

Many of us, of course, are hustling and bustling over things far less valuable, even, than the spiritual game of hopscotch I’ve just decried. And when we realize that we are chasing our tails, the tendency is to think that, instead of all this secular busyness, we need to get spiritually busy instead! But the solution is not to just baptize your frenzy. The solution is not to just leap onto a different and more spiritual sort of hamster wheel! Delightfully, the solution to the delirious pace of modern life is to take a deep breath and slow down; and to clear out the tool shed, so to speak – to streamline; to get back to basics!

So what are the basics? What do you really need to be doing, on a regular basis, to bask in the gospel and to grow in grace? Space forbids me elaborating, but (fitting for an article about simplicity!) how about a bullet-point list?

• Corporate worship and teaching, weekly (Heb. 10:24-25)
• Corporate prayer, weekly (Acts 2:42)
• Meaningful Christian fellowship, weekly (Acts 2:46)
• Meaningful Christian service, periodically (Eph. 4:11-12)
• The Lord’s Supper, periodically (1 Cor. 11:23-26)
• Family worship, daily (Deut. 6:6-9)
• Personal worship, daily (Mark 1:25)

I hope the simplicity here is refreshing! Very few resources are required for such a regimen, right? A Bible. A church home. Maybe a songbook and a catechism. And then a few other incidentals, like maybe paper, pen, etc. Other things may be helpful. But they are not usually needful!

But what definitely is needful is time! You cannot follow through on these basic biblical commitments if your life is so frantic that you only have 5 and 10 minute windows in which to try and wedge your spiritual disciplines. You must have blocks of time – uninterrupted and unhurried! Time! This is the resource that we moderns need to stock up on most of all! All the other resources are easy enough to get our hands on. But will we carve out time for using them? Will we stop running the American rat-race, or sitting down all night in front of our American TV’s … and streamline our schedules so as to drink deeply at Christ’s well? We’d find such simplicity refreshing if we did!

And, while we’re talking about the refreshing streamlining of our lives, can I say that so much of our time and busyness problems would be solved if we would only “remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” If we’d set Sunday aside – free from work, shopping, laundry, chores, ballgames, TV, and so on – we’d have all the time in the world for the first five bullet points above! Even if we hadn’t time to get together with other believers, or visit the sick, or serve the church during the week … we’d have a whole day for doing so every Sunday! We’d often have time for the ‘bonus’ resource of good Christian books, too!  And so, if the seven bullet points above seem like a lot ... the reality is that, if we just kept the sabbath, most of these blessings we would be able to provide for ourselves in a single, unhurried, restful day!  That's why the Puritans called Sunday 'the market day of the soul'!  Because, if we use it as it was intended, we will be able to garner, in one trip to market (so to speak), so much of what we need to live on for the rest of the week!  Talk about simplifying our lives!  And if we trained ourselves to say ‘no’ to the hamster wheel on Sunday, then we’d find it even all the easier to jump off of it, at the appropriate times, during the rest of the week as well … making family and personal worship not so difficult-to-find-time-for as we might currently think!

There is a rhythm to the Christian life – both daily and weekly. And it’s generally far less like the frenetic beat of techno music, and far more like the gentle, steady lapping of waves upon the seashore. I hope that’s a relief to you! Jesus’ yoke is easy, not hard-driving; and His pace is usually steady, not hurried! And so get into His steady, slow, and simple rhythm, and you will find that the Christian life is not all that complex. Difficult sometimes, yes! But not complicated! Just keep it simple.

"Locusts and wild honey"

Such was the diet of John the Baptist (Mark 1:6 and Matthew 3:4) as he preached in the wilderness in the days leading up to the coming of Christ – “locusts and wild honey”!

Wait … whaaat? “Locusts and wild honey”? Why that?

Well, the commentators William Hendriksen and R.T. France inform us that, if you were going to live in the Ancient Near Eastern wilderness, this was the sort of culinary fare that would be available to you! Evidently pastas and pestos were not on the desert menu! But “locusts and wild honey” could be gathered here and there. And so John, needing to eat, scared up what vittles he could find!

But why was John out in the wilderness – and thus limited to such a diet – in the first place? Well, John, having come in the prophetic tradition of Elijah, was necessarily roughhewn. He had not been sent to deliver fine speeches in royal courts … but to preach against sin! And his rough clothing and wilderness diet were symbolic of that calling.

And then the great commentator William Hendriksen makes this observation about John the Baptist as well:

By means of his simple mode of life, evident with respect to both his food and his clothing, he was a living protest against all selfishness and self-indulgence, hence also against that frivolousness, carelessness, and false security with which many people were rushing toward their doom. (New Testament Commentary: The Gospel of Mark, pp.39-40).

And that is probably the bottom line of John’s dietary habits. They were meant as a silent sermon against the sins of his day. And our lives ought also – in various ways – to be the same.

But as I read, this week, about John’s wilderness menu … it also occurred to me that the simplicity with which he chose to live might also have been quite a help to his own sanctification. The biblical writers don’t, of course, say that this is why John did what he did. But as I think about my own life … and then look at John’s … it occurs to me how many things he probably didn’t have to worry about, living as simply as he did. Life was simpler back then to begin with! But, by choosing to live even more simply than the norm, John perhaps was even more able to “set [his] mind on things above”. By uncluttering his life, perhaps John was able also to unclutter his soul.

Now again, I do not argue that this was John’s primary goal … or even that this was necessarily on his mind at all as he went out into the wilderness. He seems to have gone out there for the sake of others, not himself. But I can’t help but think that the “locusts and wild honey”, and the simple lifestyle that they represent, were perhaps good for John as well. And, even if he didn’t need the help … I can’t help but think that a little more John-like simplicity would be good for you and me!

Am I arguing that we all need to become ascetics, living in monasteries, and eating only bread and water? Absolutely not! John was called to a very unique ministry at a very unique time. And neither of the biblical Testaments require such a lifestyle of the bulk of God’s people. In fact, the New Testament has a lot to say about feasting!

But what if we were even just a little more like John? What if we disentangled ourselves from some commitments, and gadgets, and habits that only serve to make us more distracted, more tired, more nerve-wracked … and which decrease our attention spans, and our ability to be generous, and our desire for the word of God? What if some of us simplified our digital intake the way John simplified his diet? And what if we cleared our schedules so as not to be spending 5-6 evenings a week going to this meeting, and that extra-curricular, and so on? What if we streamlined our spending and cut out some of the waste? What, in other words, if our personal devotions were not rushed through before jetting off to work, or slept through because we tried to cram them in at the end of a too-busy day? What if we had time to eat our meals together as families, and to engage in meaningful (rather than hurried) family devotions? What if we had time to read good books, and even, frankly, to get a little more sleep? What if we had just a little more of a “locusts and wild honey” lifestyle?

Again, I’m not saying we must all go the way of John, wholesale. I don’t believe God calls most of us to do so! Nor am I ignorant of the fact that some levels of busy-ness simply cannot be avoided. There are seasons in life when the best we can do is just hang on, and perhaps listen to the scriptures on our phones as we drive to work. But let’s not settle for that as the long-term norm! Let’s streamline our lives a little bit more – eat a little more “locusts and wild honey”, as it were – and make room for that which is most important.