Shayla: What advice can you give on simplifying my life?

Meforshim:

Congratulations. The Adonaic virtue of “voluntary simplicity” is an excellent personal discipline and is strongly related to the virtues of humility and contentment. If you are familiar at all with our teachings you know how important those two are, even to our very salvation!

Theology of self-humiliation

The Spirit records this prophetic statement made to King Josiah:

· 2 Kings 22:19 HCSB because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and because you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I Myself have heard you--declares the LORD.

Israel had not been faithful to the Lord. In fact they had actually lost the Scriptures! But because Josiah immediately reacted in a humble and contrite manner, the Lord showed him mercy. The principle derashot I would like to draw here are:

1. Humility is something we do to ourselves. It is a self-imposed discipline.

2. Humbling ourselves must be in reaction to a truth learned from Scripture.

3. Humbling ourselves must be done with the Lord in mind, not other people.

· Matthew 11:29 HCSB All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.

Again, the Lord Jesus tells us that discipleship in the Way is a yoke that must be taken upon one’s self. It is not an apathetic thing. Further, we discover

4. Humbling one’s self should result in a gentle and humble heart. Any discipline that leads to arrogance is of this world and fleshy.

5. Humbling one’s self should result in spirits that are at rest because they are right with both God and man. The anorexic’s self-imposed discipline, resulting in constant fear, turmoil and deceit is thus an inappropriate form of self-humiliation.

· James 4:10 HCSB Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will exalt you.

Yet again, we find that we are to take proactive steps toward humility. If we do we are given the promise of exaltation. This may arrive both in olam hazeh (this life) and in olam habah (the world to come). In this life we gain spiritual victory over our sins and (perhaps) the regard and favor of men. In the next life we gain rewards at the Bimah Seat that we can cast at the feet of our King. Furthermore, if the Lord chooses, we may be given greater responsibility.

· 1 Peter 5:5-7 HCSB Likewise, you younger men, be subject to the elders. And all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. (6) Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that He may exalt you in due time, (7) casting all your care upon Him, because He cares about you.

Again and again we find the recurring theme, “subject yourselves”, “clothe yourselves with humility”, “humble yourselves”, “take up the yoke”. Again we find the correlation with exaltation. However, Peter gives us a few further insights into the process.

6. Part of the humbling process is to subject ourselves to godly human leadership.

7. Humbling ourselves should be done toward our fellow man, putting their needs before our own; not considering our own needs but also the needs of others.

8. Humbling ourselves involves casting our cares upon the Lord. Learning to rely upon and wait for Him.

Theology of voluntary simplicity

As to the issue of voluntary simplicity, the Master once told a young man,

· Matthew 19:21 HCSB "If you want to be perfect," Jesus said to him, "go, sell your belongings and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me."

· Mark 10:21 HCSB Then, looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, "You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me."

The Lord Himself was a perfect model of voluntary simplicity for,

· Matthew 8:20 HCSB Jesus told him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head."

· Luke 9:58 HCSB Jesus told him, "Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head."

However, there is no reason to believe that poverty is in and of itself a virtue, for many of the Scripture’s tzaddikim were quite wealthy: Abram, Job, David, Solomon to name a few. Indeed, the Lord was able to focus on His ministry because of some wealthy women who supported Him and His disciples.

· Luke 8:2-3 HCSB and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary, called Magdalene (seven demons had come out of her); (3) Joanna the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward; Susanna; and many others who were supporting them from their possessions.

Obviously, their being wealthy was not condemned because they dedicated themselves to the furtherance of the Kingdom. There is the key. It is not whether one is wealthy or poor. The issue is the focus of the heart.

· Matthew 6:19-21 HCSB "Don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. (20) But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. (21) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

· Luke 12:33-35 HCSB Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Make money-bags for yourselves that won't grow old, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. (34) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (35) "Be ready for service and have your lamps lit.

“Where your treasure is, there you heart will be also” can be reversed contrapositionally to read “If we identify your heart focus, we can identify your true treasure.” Allow me to use our father Abraham as an example. Here was a man gifted by Adonai Adonaim with tremendous wealth. Abraham’s nephew, due to his close association with his uncle, was also wealthy. However, Abraham chose to delight in the inheritance of Canaan that the Lord had promised him while Lot chose the verdant valley of Sodom as his own. Lot “pitched his tent toward Sodom”, a decision that made sound business sense, but revealed his materialistic bent.

The point? Things are not intrinsically evil. Poverty is not intrinsically holy. It’s simply that we recognize that we are too often like silly little children whose eyes are too easily captured by the shiny baubles of this world.

· Matthew 19:24 HCSB Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."

· 1 Timothy 6:6-11 HCSB But godliness with contentment is a great gain. (7) For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. (8) But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. (9) But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. (10) For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. (11) Now you, man of God, run from these things; but pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.

Our prayer should thus be:

· Proverbs 30:7-9 HCSB Two things I ask of You; don't deny them to me before I die: (8) Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me. Give me neither poverty nor wealth; feed me with the food I need. (9) Otherwise, I might have too much and deny You, saying, "Who is the LORD?" or I might have nothing and steal, profaning the name of my God.

We must learn the lesson the Apostle Paul learned.

· Philippians 4:11-12 HCSB I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. (12) I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content--whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.

Practical steps that may be taken

1. Determine your values. Seek first the kingdom of God. Put others before yourself. The Scriptures are emphatic on the values Adonaists should have. Determine and record your values so that they will guide your decisions, not the random fluctuations of worldly thought and philosophy. Slowly and methodically remove all activities and things that are inconsistent with your core values.

2. Determine your goals. Having established your values (with the Scriptures strongly influencing you I would hope), write a list of goals you’d like to achieve. I would limit this to five principle goals, as you may get lost in the complexities of multiple missions. Slowly remove all hindrances to the achievement of your goals. If, for example, your goal is to be an Olympic athlete, then I would think cake, ice cream and long sessions in front of the TV would need to be set aside.

3. Set aside family time. Very few people, on their death beds, wish they’d accumulated more stuff. What they DO wish to know is that their lives had meaning, impact, and that their loved ones are there with them. Live every day with that in mind. Besides, quality family time usually involves a board game or a Frisbee. It tends to get simple real quick in order to enhance the conversation possibilities.

4. Set aside God time. I’m not talking about church attendance here, though that too is a must for spiritual and emotional health. I’m talking about time alone with the Lover of your soul. Learn to meditate. Study how to better pray. Get your nose in the Book rather than in the Facebook.

5. Do few things but do them well. Opt for quality over quantity. In the first excitement of taking on a new lifestyle, many people make the mistake of trying to do too many things at once and end up doing none of them. There is a blessing that I often pray for people that I think is instructive on the issue. May you live life free; taking your time, going slowly. May you do few things, but do them well. Furthermore, may you discover what few others do – that simple joys are most holy. This goes for children as well. If you have to use a Day Planner to manage your children’s schedules and a substantial portion of your time is spent taxiing them around – they and you are too busy. You are training them for a life of “busy-ness”, and they will always struggle with being quiet and content.

6. Use technology responsibly. Do really need your cell phone, land line, fax, pager, email, snail mail, twitter, skype, IM, facebook, myspace, etc.? Really? How much communication and accessibility does one person truly need? Will the universe stop just because you don’t know how drunk your friends got last night or who got a banana tree on Farmtown? Are you so egotistical as to think that everyone actually is interested in what movie you’re watching at this moment? If so, then you really DO need to work on humbling yourself!

7. Delegate. Try to focus on those things that you do best, even better than anyone else. If someone else can do it as well as you and is willing to help, let them do it.

8. Cancel subscriptions. That’s what libraries are for.

9. Reduce TV time. Talk about a waste of time! Besides, do you really need to be reminded to be a conspicuous consumer every five minutes? Why brainwash (is there such a thing as “brain-dirty”?) yourself with “If you want to be sexy, buy our toothpaste.” “If you want to be accepted, use our credit card.”?

10. Reduce clutter. If you haven’t used it in a year you probably don’t need it. Clean out your closet; your basement; your locker; your car; your wallet or purse.

11. Reduce associations. If it isn’t improving your character, your love for God, or your service to your fellow man then cancel that membership. If they aren’t helping you morally or you’re not helping THEM morally, then quit hanging out with those people.

12. Reduce driving. Try to live close to your work. Do the same for church. Try to combine trips so that you reduce the number of “quick trips” to the store, the pizza place, the movie store or whatever. Bicycle when you can.

13. Reduce clothing. Too many of us have drawers and closets full of clothing we have not worn in years and will probably not wear any time soon. Get rid of it. Don’t throw it away. That would be a waste. Give it to Good Will or the Salvation Army or your church’s clothes pantry or a specific person who wears your size. We keep tubs of clothing around simply because we pass them down from child to child. But once the last child has outgrown it, if the item is still in good condition, our family quickly gives it to another family’s child.

14. Get out of debt. Financial debt is the number one source of stress for the vast majority of Americans.

15. Live frugally. Quit being a conspicuous consumer. Contrary to American culture and the repeated appeals of our Presidents, an Adonaist should not be a homo economicus. We do not live to buy. We do not store up our treasures on earth, and we, like our father Abraham, refuse to take so much as a shoe lace from this world’s kings lest they claim to have enriched us. Like Paul we consider all this world’s things as “so much dung.” Like Moses, we despise the wealth and status of Egypt and choose instead to look forward to a city not built with hands. We consider ourselves nomads on this earth. Nomads travel light.

16. Simplify your budget. Get the little bills out of the way. Transfer debt to lower interest cards. Reduce the number of credit cards. Get it manageable!

17. Automate. Use automatic bill payments to simplify your life and reduce the chance of you forgetting to pay on time.

18. Pack lunches. You will end up with a more nutritional lunch that will cost you less money. Furthermore, it’s one more way to train yourself to not spend spontaneously.

19. Eat simply. Eat lower on the food chain. Reduce the number of chemicals you imbibe. Simplify the variety of foods to what is actually nutritious. Cease regarding food as yet another source of entertainment and self-gratification. In that same vein, eat slowly! Enjoy the food Hashem has provided for you. Savor it, don’t gulp it. Make sure that the food you’re eating actually is nutritious. This is why so many Americans are obese. They eat high-calorie, super sweet foods that have zero nutritional value. The body craves certain vitamins and minerals and, left unsatisfied by the processed food most consume, it keeps signaling hunger which makes the person eat more nutrition-less food. It’s a self-defeating cycle. But eat low on the food chain; eat high quality food; and savor that food, and watch your body modify itself to the best it can be.

20. Clear your desk (and desktop). A cluttered environment is an indication of a cluttered mind. It is far easier to tame physical clutter than it is to tame mental clutter. You will not be at your most creative or achieve true mental discipline if you cannot discipline the clutter around you.

21. Build in routines. Notice I said routines and not ruts. Routines are handy tools that help us discipline our lives and get the most bang for our bucks. Ruts remain even at personal cost. Find out what works for you and stick to it.

22. Empty your inbox. Whether it’s your email inbox or the inbox on your desk, discipline yourself to not put something down until you have done what needs to be done with it. Systematically go through and DECIDE! Don’t vacillate. Don’t procrastinate. Clear it out!

23. Build in healthy habits. You can’t just quit doing everything. You have to replace bad habits with good habits. If you really want to quit being a couch potato, you need to start exercising. If you want to quit your negativity, you need to start practicing positive thinking and using grateful words. If you have to leave unhealthy relationships, make sure you find some healthy relationships.

24. Reduce multi-tasking. Our modern society has almost elevated multi-tasking to a religion. But it has been repeatedly been demonstrated that multi-tasking seriously reduces the quality of our efforts. This is so true that some studies have shown that people who drive while speaking on their phone are as impaired as those who would be considered driving under the influence of alcohol! Some states have actually made it illegal to talk on the phone while driving! If it is true in that case, we must make all multi-tasking in our lives suspect.

25. Learn to appreciate silence. Do not be like those people who have turn on the radio and TV as soon as they enter their apartments. Be comfortable in your own skin. Be comfortable alone with your thoughts.