Continuing the Conversation: Simplicity

I heard him speaking quietly to my heart. You know, that still small voice that so easily gets lost among the chaos of everyday living.

My husband had lovingly sent me out for a few hours of processing time. Being just over 2 months postpartum from the birth of my fourth son, I was understandably overwhelmed. But I had gotten to a point that I couldn’t even think straight. I knew my heart had longings – longings to be more, to be enough actually – because I so often felt like I failed. But I wasn’t even sure what those were any more.

So I took the time, coffee, quiet, good music and my Bible. And I sought God. I asked questions. Lots. I was silent much of the time. And when it finally came through, His voice was crystal clear. “Be still and know, Hannah. Be still and know that I am God.” It seemed like such a simple answer – should be easy, right? But as a stay at home mom of four boys, I never. Stopped. Moving! How could I ever be still?

I started seeking, analyzing, and trying to understand the root of all the motion. The word “simplify” seemed to continue to surface throughout my studies. But what did I really have to simplify? We had a garage sale the year before, and I really felt like I had cleaned out well at that point. And even though my schedule felt “busy,” at that point, my kids had not ECA’s and other that Wednesday nights, we were home almost all the time. I fought the idea at first. I’m not a rich person. We don’t have the biggest house, and I sure don’t have too much stuff. But then why was I always feeling so suffocated and unable to focus?

My husband came home from work one day with a story of a couple who had a very nice couch they loved but had no place for in their home. So they rented a storage unit and paid monthly to have it stored there in case one day they may want to bring it back into their home. Years later, they went to retrieve it – and finding it moth eaten and unusable, they grieved the loss and realized their mistake of hanging on to something for “what if” had cost them more in money, time, thought, and energy than it had potentially benefited them.

God immediately began to bring to mind different items around my home that I had stashed or stored just in case I may need it sometime. He raised the question in my mind, “Hannah, because you are hanging onto that dress, that bedding, those dishes, the baby gear, are you trusting in your possessions more than you are trusting in me? Are you turning your stuff into your ‘savior’?”

Scripture is pretty clear that we should have no other gods (Exodus 20:3) and that we should love the Lord our God first and most (Matthew 22:37). In maintaining and finding storage for all these extras that I didn’t know if or when I would need again, I was not only taxing my management ability, my ability to focus, and my chaos meter, but I was also putting those items in place of God in certain parts of my life. When I found myself saying, “I cannot live without this.” I was saying that I was in control, and I had to stay in control to guarantee my future. My stuff and my own control were subtly seeping onto the throne of my heart.

As I began the slow process of weeding out these extras. These items of idolatry in my life, I found out my heart was more deceitful than I first thought. I uncovered areas of both pride and fear. I found myself constantly pendulum swinging from “contentment” (not godly contentment – prideful contentment in my possessions and how I compared to the world around me) or consumerism (aka: fear that if I didn’t have, didn’t buy, didn’t own certain things, I would be less than, undesirable, or not measure up in some way to the world around me.

No one can serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24). And that is exactly what I was doing. When I was emotional, I would shop. When I had free time, I would shop. I didn’t think it was a bad thing because I would find good bargains and stay within my budget, but what I had failed to see was that my heart was devoted to my money, to my possessions, to my appearance rather than trusting God to provide exactly what I need and direct my heart to what was best.

I started with my clothing. I knew that if simplicity was a change I wanted to see in my home as a whole, I had to start with myself. My dresser was overflowing, closet stuffed, buckets in the basement. How could one person ever use so many clothes? I was disgusted with where I had wound up. After tackling my clothing, I went on to my books, decor, kitchen, linens and continued to move throughout my house. I found so many things that I didn’t even like taking up space and time to maintain that I was hanging onto just because it had been given to us. I found myself even irritated with some of these items. Why not just get rid of them? They don’t serve a purpose…you don’t even like them. Yeah, but someone had spent some money or time on them, and if I got rid of them, I was afraid of what those people would think. And it made me feel guilty somehow. Then God whispered to my heart. “Hannah, are you fearing man more than you are fearing God? What if I asked you to get rid of it to make more space for me? Would you fear me more than them?”

Challenges, growth, and freedom have all come through this process of pursuing simplicity in order to make room to Be Still. One of the most freeing moments so far happened one day when I sat down with my to do list, overwhelmed at the amount of things left on it for the day. I brought it before God. I just don’t see how I’m going to get this all done. This is so overwhelming! “Hannah,” He quietly whispered back. “Your expectations of yourself are higher than my expectations are of you. Let it go.” A weight lifted as I looked back at my list and realized that of the nine things left there, only two were necessary for that day and four I could eliminate all together just by freeing myself of my own expectations and choosing to live within God’s expectations for my day.

Simplicity: this journey that God has had me on for the last twelve months has begun to free me to know who God is, to understand who I am as a result of it, to the interrelationship of how I interact with the world around me and the stillness or chaos of my own heart. This journey to simplify, to still my heart and to be. To Be here. Be still. And know. That HE IS GOD!

I would love to hear how God is directing your journey or any lessons you've been learning about who God is and who you are in the midst of learning to be still...