Of the Essence

Each first friday of the month I have the more serious youth over to the house for what we have called The Journey. I started walking them through various Spiritual Disciplines as found in Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline. If you haven’t read it I highly encourage you to grab a copy (it has become a classic).

So, think about this…I am talking about disciplines in Twenty-Eleven to a group of inner-city youth. This topic would be hard enough to keep the attention of adults, but this group has surprised me. They have enjoyed Lectio Divina (Divine Reading), and opened up and shared each week. We have covered Meditation, How to Study God’s Word, and hit on a few others. This week, though, I am especially stoked. I am talking about Prayer.

Richard Foster says (33):

Of all the Spiritual Disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father. Meditation introduces us to the inner life, fasting is an accompanying means, study transforms our minds, but it is the Discipline of prayer that brings us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit.

There is nothing more central to our spiritual life than the communication we have with our Creator. I hope, like the youth I meet with tonight, that you will endeavor on this journey to have a life more fulfilling by making prayer more important. The conversations we have with God are just that, conversations. While I will discuss various types of prayer (i.e. adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession), what it boils down to is a life led by the Spirit in constant communication with God. Join us on The Journey!

Simplicity: not so simple

Kierkegaard writes, “. . . riches and abundance come hypocritically clad in sheep’s clothing pretending to be security against anxieties and they become then the object of anxiety . . . they secure a man against anxieties just about as well as the wolf which is put to tending the sheep secures them . . . against the wolf.”

Simplicity is crucial to our inner happiness and satisfaction but so few us every find it. Simplicity brings freedom and balance, whereas duplicity brings bondage, anxiety, and fear. Richard Foster writes contemporary culture lacking both the inward reality and the outward life-style of simplicity.

Security and the opinions of others keep us enslaved to worldly wants and desires as well as to a pseudo-security in whose hands we entrust our lives. Your body is nothing but a sack of flesh and bones slowly deteriorating. The things we work so hard for will have no meaning or value in 100 years, but yet we enslave ourselves to their fading glory.

Having nothing is NOT the cure. Instead, a superficial change in life-style without dealing seriously with the root problems of a consumer society is hardly an improvement. Simplicity is rather an inner reality that results in an outward lifestyle (Celebration of Disciple, 79). Sadly, those that don’t have often struggle the most with materialism.

The key is keeping the kingdom of God central. We don’t seek to not have or not want, instead we seek first the kingdom of God.

Here are 10 outward expressions of simplicty:

1. Buy things for their usefulness rather than their status.
2. Reject anything that is producing an addiction in you.
3. Develop a habit of giving things away.
4. Refuse to be propagandized by the custodians of modern gadgetry.
5. Learn to enjoy things without owning them.
6. Develop a deeper appreciation for the creation.
7. Look with a healthy skepticism at all ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes.
8. Obey Jesus’ instructions about plain, honest speech.
9. Reject anything that breeds the oppression of others.
10. Shun anything that distracts you from seeking first the kingdom of God.

Simplicity is about focusing on what really matters. Simplicity is about restoring order to a chaotic society beginning with inside ourselves. Once we find the reality of simplicity we will live with the kingdom of God as our priority.