Spiritual FormationSample

Simplicity and reordering the loves of our heart

The idea of living with simplicity may mean you pass on unused clothes and household items once a year. While that is great, simplicity as a spiritual practice for transformation has more to do with our heart attitude. Matthew recorded Jesus’ words spoken to gatherings of people at different times. The verse for today is from the sermon on the mount, and The Message version reads: ‘What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving.’

To simplify our lives, we all need to courageously assess whether we love the things we have and the relationships we have more than we trust God. Richard Foster, in Understanding Simplicity, gives us a way to put the words of Jesus into a practical assessment: ‘If what we have we can receive as a gift from God; and if what we have we know is to be cared for by God; and if what we have can be available to others when it is clearly right and good, then we are living in the inward reality of simplicity. But if what we have we feel that we alone have gotten; and if what we have we believe is up to us to hold on to; and if what we have we cannot make available to others when it is clearly right and good, then we are living in duplicity.’

Today, let’s courageously place the people, things and experiences we love into the sentences above and ask God to help us reorder the loves of our hearts to put Him first.

Written by KATH HENRY