simplicity and purpose without Jesus?

Simplicity, and purpose without Jesus?

About five years ago I was in this mindset to believe that you must go as far as you possibly can in life, and that distance is measured by how busy you are, how hard you work and how much you've have. This is still a mindset for many who are happy to buy in and do what it takes to maintain the upgradeable “happy” lifestyle. But there is a different lifestyle that I came to see. The lifestyle I’m talking about is the lifestyle of simplicity and purpose in Jesus. Thoreau caught a glimpse, but missed out on the Jesus part. He had a satisfaction with less, in the sense that less of pressure, intensity, busyness, self-determination, personal satisfaction, and spiritual fulfillment.

Thoreau believed that society caused people to wander through life aimlessly. By removing himself from the source of his aimlessness and retreating to the woods, he was able to think he had an idea of purpose. He chose to escape civilization and move to the wilderness for hunger of simplicity. He makes this very clear. He says, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

His quote really had an effect of me. I went from thinking about the lack of Jesus in his life, and how he was a person that was searching for something different and all he needed was him, to wondering what kind of person he would have been with that foundation of God, and not trying to find a God in himself and simplicity. When I think of living deliberately I think of purpose in Jesus, the Great Commission. When I apply this quote to my life with Christ it challenges me. If you are living for Jesus you’re living deliberately, knowing the consequence with joy.