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01-06-2009, 10:55 AM
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Still Figuring It Out.
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 10,858
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Simplicity
Years ago I had a minister speak these words to me.
"If you're not careful you'll miss the simplicity of Christ"
Those words have shaped my life from them until now and I am sitting here today being inundated with an undeniable realization that all good things come through simplicity.
Knowing my Christ is not difficult nor is it encumbered with all manner of measurements & rules. It is a simple thing to know Christ. So simple, in fact, that many miss it entirely.
The happiest life is the simple life.
Running 90 to nothing for the church & the soccer team doesn't make anyone happy. It just helps people run fast enough to not realize how unhappy they really are.
I feel more and more that peace is found in simplicity. A simple relationship with our God. Living a simple undemanding life. Living life with the simplest of our needs being met.
The big houses and fancy cars always seem to take more from us than they ever give back to us. They just place more demands on our already taxed life.
When I heard those words spoken to me years ago I thought he was just talking about my actual relationship with God. The rest of my life could be as complex as I wanted it to be.
For years I simplified my relationship with God but my life continued to drag me along.
As my life is beginning to slow down my relationship with my family is strengthened and has grown.
As our "pile o' stuff" decreases and the fancy things are sold off for simpler living other parts of my well being and who I am as a person are strengthened and I find more peace.
Today... by my choice... I have less than I have ever had in my life and I am happier than I have ever been. I am more at peace and I have the time and opportunity to share that peace with my family and we are stronger for it.
I must say thanks today to the minister who spoke those words to me so many years ago. I had no idea the eventual ramifications that those words would have in my life.
Like many others... I never realized that my relationship with God isn't just a one directional thing. To find the simplicity of Christ it requires that simplicity permeate my life.
Goodbye big city, fancy stuff and voluminous comforts... I am glad to have left you behind because, in some way, I find myself discovering a place whose builder and maker is God and, in this place, I find more peace and rest than I ever knew might be possible.
God is good... all the time.
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01-06-2009, 11:03 AM
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Rebel with a cause.
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
Posts: 6,813
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Re: Simplicity
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digging4Truth
Years ago I had a minister speak these words to me.
"If you're not careful you'll miss the simplicity of Christ"
Those words have shaped my life from them until now and I am sitting here today being inundated with an undeniable realization that all good things come through simplicity.
Knowing my Christ is not difficult nor is it encumbered with all manner of measurements & rules. It is a simple thing to know Christ. So simple, in fact, that many miss it entirely.
The happiest life is the simple life.
Running 90 to nothing for the church & the soccer team doesn't make anyone happy. It just helps people run fast enough to not realize how unhappy they really are.
I feel more and more that peace is found in simplicity. A simple relationship with our God. Living a simple undemanding life. Living life with the simplest of our needs being met.
The big houses and fancy cars always seem to take more from us than they ever give back to us. They just place more demands on our already taxed life.
When I heard those words spoken to me years ago I thought he was just talking about my actual relationship with God. The rest of my life could be as complex as I wanted it to be.
For years I simplified my relationship with God but my life continued to drag me along.
As my life is beginning to slow down my relationship with my family is strengthened and has grown.
As our "pile o' stuff" decreases and the fancy things are sold off for simpler living other parts of my well being and who I am as a person are strengthened and I find more peace.
Today... by my choice... I have less than I have ever had in my life and I am happier than I have ever been. I am more at peace and I have the time and opportunity to share that peace with my family and we are stronger for it.
I must say thanks today to the minister who spoke those words to me so many years ago. I had no idea the eventual ramifications that those words would have in my life.
Like many others... I never realized that my relationship with God isn't just a one directional thing. To find the simplicity of Christ it requires that simplicity permeate my life.
Goodbye big city, fancy stuff and voluminous comforts... I am glad to have left you behind because, in some way, I find myself discovering a place whose builder and maker is God and, in this place, I find more peace and rest than I ever knew might be possible.
God is good... all the time.
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Excellent post, DFT!
__________________
"Many people view their relationship with God like a "color by number" picture. It's easier to let someone else define the boundaries, tell them which blanks to fill in, and what color to use than it is for them to take a blank canvas and seek inspiration from the Source in order to paint their own masterpiece"
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01-06-2009, 11:03 AM
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Resident PeaceMaker
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Jackson,AL.
Posts: 16,548
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Re: Simplicity
Great post and it begs the question what is life all about anyways.
__________________
People who are always looking for fault,can find it easily all they have to do,is look into their mirror.
There they can find plenty of fault.
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01-06-2009, 11:11 AM
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ModeratelyConservativePro gresv
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 298
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Re: Simplicity
I am on the same journey. Less is more!
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01-06-2009, 11:16 AM
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Still Figuring It Out.
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 10,858
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Re: Simplicity
Quote:
Originally Posted by Innocuous
I am on the same journey. Less is more!
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Congratulations.
It is a wonderful journey to be on.
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01-06-2009, 11:22 AM
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Not riding the train
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 48,544
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Re: Simplicity
Excellent post, Digging! I was thinking that our present economic crisis is going to put a lot of things in perspective and allow people to be forced to find the simplicity they have desired, but didn't have the courage to seek. Or rather, were on a treadmill that they couldn't get off.
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01-06-2009, 11:24 AM
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Still Figuring It Out.
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 10,858
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Re: Simplicity
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pressing-On
Excellent post, Digging! I was thinking that our present economic crisis is going to put a lot of things in perspective and allow people to be forced to find the simplicity they have desired, but didn't have the courage to seek. Or rather, were on a treadmill that they couldn't get off.
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Yes ma'am. Amazing enough... while it is an easy choice to make... the reality of making it happen is anything but easy.
This world we live in goes so fast that it makes getting off the track a hard task.
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01-06-2009, 11:27 AM
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Not riding the train
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 48,544
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Re: Simplicity
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digging4Truth
Yes ma'am. Amazing enough... while it is an easy choice to make... the reality of making it happen is anything but easy.
This world we live in goes so fast that it makes getting off the track a hard task.
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Amen! And it's wonderful that God knows the thoughts and intents of our hearts!
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01-06-2009, 02:40 PM
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ModeratelyConservativePro gresv
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Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 298
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Re: Simplicity
Quote:
Originally Posted by Digging4Truth
Yes ma'am. Amazing enough... while it is an easy choice to make... the reality of making it happen is anything but easy.
This world we live in goes so fast that it makes getting off the track a hard task.
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Isn't that the absolute truth. It's not easy to unload stuff and make changes. I'm doing a near complete liquidation and moving across the country and lworking toward living a greatly downsized and reduced lifestyle when I get there and it's gonna take me about a year to make that happen. It's nuts. Shalom doesn't come easily, but it's worth it. For me, some it is necessitated by the economy, most of it by choice. It's been something I've been working toward for awhile, well before the recession hit.
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01-06-2009, 11:35 AM
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Administrator
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 13,829
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Re: Simplicity
Wow. Great post. God must read my private messages. LOL!!!!
__________________
"God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours."
--David Livingstone
"To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—
abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;…."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road
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