The (elusive) Simple Life

We are constantly changing.  We are growing, evolving, maturing.  Our likes and dislikes, our pet peeves and favorite things, the coffee we drink and the food we eat, the way we dress and the way we spend our time are always morphing.  We grow older, maybe a little wiser, and then mess up and start again.  It’s this constant process, this consistent attempt to trade-up that is hard and scary and weird.  The future is looming in this very near, very palpable way, and it’s all so hazy and unclear.  We are scared and we forget to trust God.I stress over the littlest things.  I was talking to my friend Anna over lunch today, and she told me that she feels like she moves from worry to worry, and if she has nothing to worry about, she makes something up.  That is so completely true of our generation.  We stress and we worry and we obsess until there’s hardly anything left and then we overanalyze some more.

What ever happened to the simple life?

It was swallowed up in iPhones, texting and read receipts, cult TV shows, empty Starbucks cups, sonic straw wrappers, and a constant schedule telling us what to do and when to do it.  We are losing something so vital to our lives: peace, stillness, reflection.  There is this essential quality that we have lost, Christians and non-Christians alike.  Let’s get back to that place.

I’ve been losing myself lately in this hectic college mess of midterms and studying and coffee dates.  I feel it in the marrow of my bones, in my soul, and in the core depth of what makes up my likes, my fears, and my preferences.  There is this palpable feeling of loss and lacking.  Ever so quietly, I can barely hear a still voice that keeps whispering ever so gently, “Come back”.  I feel myself yielding, however, to the loud noise that surrounds me constantly.  I watch TV for hours, I study for hours, I see people and talk about nothing and everything for hours, and yet, I can’t spend ten minutes with Jesus, the one I call the love of my life, my everything, my all in all.  Who am I?  Who am I becoming?

We have to seek the stillness.  We have to search for it and work for it.  It’s not easy and it’s not quick.  It’s a process and something you fail at a lot.  I am trying and  to follow that still small voice that Elijah obeyed.  I am listening harder every day, every moment so that I don’t forget who I am.  I pray for reminders of my heavenly reality and of my inheritance.  I pray for peace and stillness so that I can hear that small whisper that fills every corner of my broken and sinful heart with warmth.  In the noise, I get lost.  In the stillness, I am found.

Let’s stop hearing the noise and the radio feedback, and listen for the voice that is whispering beneath the layers of TV dialogue, Siri, and the conflicting sounds all around us.

Take a moment and Listen.