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August 26, 2024
Buddhism is in (which works well since it’s essentially a religion without God)
infinite desire – finite soul = restlessness.
Ultimately, nothing in this life, apart from God, can satisfy our desires. Tragically, we continue to chase after our desires ad infinitum. The result? A chronic state of restlessness or, worse, angst, anger, anxiety, disillusionment, depression—all of which lead to a life of hurry, a life of busyness, overload, shopping, materialism, careerism, a life of more…which in turn makes us even more restless.
The Sabbath is how we fill our souls back up with life.
West’s twin gods: accomplishment and accumulation.
the life you’ve always wanted is fully available to you right where you are through Jesus.
things aren’t just things; they are identities.
There’s a reason the only other god Jesus ever called out by name was Mammon—the god of money.
our “consumer” economy is now built around people spending money they don’t have on things they don’t need.
But wherever you fall in the socioeconomic stratum, the most important things in life aren’t things at all; they are relationships with family, friends, and, above all, God.
Joshua Becker, a follower of Jesus and former pastor who now writes about minimalism full time, defined it these ways: The intentional promotion of the things we most value and the removal of everything that distracts us from them.
As Saint Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva, once said, “In everything, love simplicity.”
As a general rule when you see an item you want, just sit on it for a while. The larger the item, the longer you should wait. Think it over. Give your rational mind time to catch up to your irrational flesh. Pray over it. Remember, God isn’t against stuff;
The English designer William Morris offered a good rule of thumb: “Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”
As Dallas Willard so astutely pointed out, the cost of discipleship is high, but the cost of non-discipleship is even higher.
Yes, it will cost you to follow Jesus and live his way of simplicity. But it will cost you far more not to. It will cost you money and time and a life of justice and the gift of a clean conscience and time for prayer and an unrushed soul and, above all, the “life that is truly life.”
is, let prayer set your emotional equilibrium and Scripture set your view of the world. Begin your day in the spirit of God’s presence and the truth of his Scriptures.
Our time is our life, and our attention is the doorway to our hearts.
multitasking is a myth. Literally. Only God is omnipresent.
As the Greek once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Tomorrow I’ll be tired, but I’ll still feel my soul.
“At this point in my life, I’m just trying to not miss the goodness of each day, and bring my best self to it.”
I’m reasonably happy. Reasonably happy is more than enough.
Slow down. Simplify my life around the practices of Jesus. Live from a center of abiding.
The end isn’t silence and solitude; it’s to come back to God and our true selves.
But in the cruciform kingdom, only the bad things die: image and status and bragging rights, all vanity. More importantly: death is always followed by resurrection.
What’s hard isn’t following Jesus. What’s hard is following myself, doing my life my way; therein lies the path to exhaustion.
