What do we really need?

Answering the question of what we really need is essential to living a simple life, but let me expand on it first.

What is really necessary to fulfill God's design, call and purpose for your life?

For example, maybe serving Christ means it is necessary to have an $85,000 education to become a lawyer who will defend assaults on Christian living. In that case, your wardrobe would have to be appropriate for a courtroom too. It might be necessary to take clients to lunch and so an expense account would be required as well. These would all be legitimate needs for you to serve God as He has called you.

Maybe you are called to work in the "blue collar" section in American life. Your clothing would probably not include a power suit and your education would probably be much less expensive, but your mission is no less important.

The question is again what is necessary for you to simply be the person God called you to be?

What material things are necessary for you to fulfill His plan for your life? What are you doing with the resources that He provides for you to serve Him?

Our lives are about Christ, what He wants for us and what He wants to do through us. Everything else is a distraction and probably unnecessary.

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Encouraged by this article on Make my Christian life Work website, I have determined to do some serious work to simplify my life. I have talked about it long enough and now the time has come to put the plan into action. And so on this rain-soaked Saturday, Mike and set out to clean the office closet - together. May not sound like such a big feat but anybody who knows us knows we don't clean together well. He's a messy pack-rat, I'm a organization freak. The combination often spells disaster! He keeps everything "just in case" whereas I like to keep only what I KNOW I will use. There is a reason we have his and her sheds you know! He keeps his tools and contraptions in his shed - an on occassion you can even walk in there and manage not to kill yourself attempting to reach a hammer or a drill! My stuff is stored neatly in my shed. In bins and boxes. Labeled. Sorted. Accessible. This system of yours & mine keeps us from constantly cramping each others' styles. But the office closet is OUR stuff. Co-existing. In my opinion, not so happily since my stuff doesn't like being buried under piles of "junk". BIG undertaking this closet! But guess what? Three hours later we emerged still happily married, with a super clean and organized closet, a huge box of donations, a full trash bag of junk, and only a small box of adoption papers to weed through together before we put the important papers into storage. Amazing!

And now as if to tempt fate, we're attempting to rearrange our bedroom furniture, together. Will we do it? Time will tell!