“I believe the way toward mastery of any endeavour
is to work toward simplicity.”Yvon Chounard –
Fly fisherman and founder of Patagonia
Grace to you and peace.
Does God only speak to us through the Bible?
I’m sure there are those who believe that to be the case. But, that kind of limits God, doesn’t it? Perhaps God speaks to us in many different ways.
For instance, have you ever read something in a book or magazine that just jumped off the page at you? A word or phrase that expressed perfectly how you felt? Is it a coincidence when that happens, or is it God?
I believe it is God.
This past week I was reading a book by the poet Christian Wiman when I ran across this:
“To experience grace is one thing; to integrate it into your life is quite another. What I crave now is that integration, some speech that is true to the transcendent nature of grace yet adequate to the hard reality in which daily faith operates.” (Italics mine)
What Wiman articulates so beautifully is nothing less than what I seek – to integrate God’s grace into every aspect of my life. The interesting thing is that for the last few weeks three words have been running through my mind: eliminate, simplify and integrate.
How do they fit together?
Eliminate
It’s amazing how much ‘stuff’ you can collect over the years. Maybe accumulate would be a better word. Collect sounds like you’ve acquired things intentionally. Most of what fills our house just came along for the ride.
Since Covid-19 hit, my wife and I have been unloading…and unloading…and unloading some of the ‘stuff’ that we have accumulated. It feels good to unload; It almost feels as if the house gets lighter with each thing that goes away. It’s all part of a bigger project to streamline and simplify our life.
You can accumulate a lot of spiritual ‘stuff’ as well. Unfortunately, you can’t load it into the car and drop it off at Goodwill. Some of my spiritual ‘stuff’ was collected intentionally and it was useful at one time. But now as I hear God calling me to new adventures, some of it is more of a hindrance than anything else. Other spiritual ‘stuff’ came from, well who knows where. Whatever its origin, there’s just too much of it. I need some spiritual space to breathe and listen for God’s voice.
Space is important. If I’m too full of myself, then there’s not enough space for God in my heart. As John the Baptist said about his relationship with Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30). Being too full of myself leads to arrogance, which can lead to an attitude of smug certainty. We know those types of believers, the ones who think they know better than others the mind and will of God (I’ve been one of them). They have no space to listen for God’s prompting or the opinions of other sincere believers.
Simplify
When it comes to my faith, I have become a big picture kind of guy. This is new for me. I have always been detail-oriented, wanting to know as much as possible. I think what I was after was certainty. However, the deeper you go in your faith, the deeper you go in your study of scripture, the more you realize that there are things we will never know in this life. You have to be ok living with mystery. You have to be ok with some lack of certainty. Now, let’s not confuse a lack of certainty with a lack of faith. I don’t know for certain what heaven and hell are like. I don’t know for certain who will populate those two places, if in fact, they are places. And truth be told I don’t care. I really don’t think about what’s coming next because I trust God. My faith is simple: I am certain of God’s love and goodness. Christ died and was resurrected from the dead so that I might have fullness of life. That’s grace. My future is in God’s hands and I’m at peace with that. And, as Martin Luther said, it’s really not our place to speculate about things above us.
So, my goal is to pare things down to the basics and the more spiritual ‘stuff’ I eliminate, the ‘stuff’ that gets between me and God, the simpler and more authentic my faith becomes.
Integrate
How can I live this out in real life?
At the top of this blog there is a quote by Yvon Chounard, fly fisherman and founder of Patagonia. He is also the author of Simple Fly Fishing, a book devoted to using only the essentials when fly fishing. Fishing has become pretty technical and you sure can buy lots of stuff (just visit Bass Pro Shop or Cabela’s and walk the countless aisles of fishing equipment). But, Chounard believes that all of this stuff is an impediment to truly enjoying the sport. A simple rod and a single fly are really all that you need.
What do you need to be a follower of Christ? The prophet Micah laid it out very simply:
“This is what [the LORD] requires of you:
to do what is right, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.”
With all due respect to Micah, I would have reversed the order. By walking humbly with God, by being open and having a listening heart, everything else will follow. We have to let go of anything that gets in the way of that.
Like most people, I want to live joyfully. So, I’m going to simplify my fishing, simplify my daily life and simplify my spiritual life. Eliminate. Simplify. Integrate. That is my new mantra. And as I unload the ‘stuff’ that I don’t need, I’m able to hear God’s voice more clearly than ever. Less truly can be more.
And so the journey continues…
Divine Overtones 