Keep my life simple

I’ve got too much going on in my life, but I want to keep my life simple, so I discard the complex.

He’s a fictional character and I like the freedom he has.

His name is Jack reacher and is the creation of Lee Child.

Jack Reacher has the life of a nomad. He wanders from town to town and solves problems, generally with a lot of violence. That part is not what I’m keen on, but there is something unique about his life.

It’s extremely simple.

He travels mostly by hitchhiking, and all he carries is an ATM Card and a toothbrush.

That’s all.

If he needs new clothes, he buys them. He doesn’t carry a bag or even a cell phone.

He is free from all the possessions that we would normally call essential. His possessions don’t own him.

Sounds good doesn’t it? Maybe, but he doesn’t have a spouse, girlfriend, kids or relational commitments.

It’s a simple life, which has an appeal, but it’s a life of a loner.

Does this appeal to something in you?

Is there something within you that would love to walk away from the complexity of stuff?

I’ve shifted house three times in the last three years and I have got rid of a lot of things. Trailer loads.

It’s freeing. It’s liberating to cut your life down to the minimum.

I don’t think I will ever get to the ‘Jack Reacher’ phase, although I wouldn’t mind trying it for a few weeks to see what it would be like.

Take nothing for your journey

Jesus was a kind of Jack Reacher, I think.

He lived an even more minimalist life style than Jack. All he probably owned were the clothes he wore and even then those were stolen off him. John 19:23

In sending out his followers on their mission, he called them to live a Jack Reacher lifestyle

Then Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases,and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal.

He said to them, ‘Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.

Whatever house you enter, stay there, and leave from there.

Wherever they do not welcome you, as you are leaving that town shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.’

They departed and went through the villages, bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere. Luke 9:1-6

God was going to provide for them. There was a hospitality in the community that welcomed the nomad.

On the other side of complexity

I probably own over a million items. If I was going to count all the screws, bolts, grains of rice, seeds unsown, then it would be easily over a million.

There is a complexity to all of that stuff.

I have to store it, shelve it, keep it dry, keep it clean. It can make my life complex and expensive. When you come to shift all those items, you soon realise that they all have a weight to them.

There is a complexity to many of our lives that creates stress and restriction.

The upkeep of all our complexity has an ambient stress load to it.

We want a simple lifestyle, but all our ‘million’ items need attention.

Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote this.

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have. Oliver Wendell Holmes

What I think Oliver was referring to was how we can so easily make life more complicated and complex than it needs to be. Bring it back to the simple and keep it there.

An example I think of is in many of the sermons and books I read. They are very complex.

If only the presenter could bring it down to one simple idea. That is it what I want. One simple, clear, lived truth idea.

This is something I talk about in my course, Writing the Connects.

Our great problem is the problem of trafficking in unlived truth.
We try to communicate what we’ve never experienced in our own life. Dwight L Moody

You and all your stuff

How much stuff are you carrying?

Keep my life simple is a call to jettison what is not needed.

It may not be a Jack Reacher lifestyle, but it might be a call to live in a less complex, simple, and uncluttered freedom.

Keep my life simple

Keep my life simple Lord
Prayerfully quiet with you
My heart can go everywhere
Bring me back to true

Thoughts can take me everywhere
Worries can take me down
Keep my life simple Lord
Steady on solid ground

I want to know the next footsteps
Your steps right beside mine
The steps of yesterday
Being washed away with the tide

It’s a daily invitation
To simply be quite still
Still candles do burn brighter
A lesson learned from you

Narrow my life down to a few things
Too much will complicate
Sharpen my focus and keep it tight
Distractions will decimate

Give a focus for today
Distractions take me down
Not to yesterday I look
Only to your glorious crown

You give me manna
Just enough for the way
Help me create from the energy within
For this sacred day

Barry Pearman

Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz

Give a little gift to keep the pages turning

Quotes to consider

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Fasting, detachment, and simplicity were the original words for non-addiction in the spiritual traditions. Richard Rohr Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
Simple lifestyle is quite simply an act of solidarity with the way most people have lived since the beginnings of humanity. Richard Rohr Page Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
When you agree to live simply, people cease to be possessions and objects for your consumption or use. Richard Rohr Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi
Francis taught us, therefore, that the antidote to confusion and paralysis is always a return to simplicity, to what is actually right in front of us, to the nakedly obvious. Richard Rohr The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Chaos, Reorder
Simplicity means a return to the posture of dependence. Like children we live in a spirit of trust. What we have we receive as a gift. Richard Foster
Prayer frees us from anxiety because it teaches us trust. And the result is peace. Prayer and simplicity àre intertwined. Richard Foster
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Leonardo da Vinci
When your outflow exceeds your income, your upkeep becomes your downfall. Jim Rohn

Questions to answer

What would it be like to have a life like Jack Reacher? The positives and the negatives.
How much ‘stuff’ do you have? Does it add a complexity to your life you don’t need?
How much security do your possessions provide for you? What would get stirred up in you if Jesus said to you, ‘Take nothing with you’?