Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrustful?
Yet another multiple choice question with six different ways to seek improvement.
At the heart of this question is an attitude of contentment. The Holy Club's aspiration to live a simple life is not just about having few possessions or living on a small budget (both of them highly counter-cultural in the 21st Century). It's about learning to find happiness in our relationship with God.
So often we feel unsettled because we compare ourselves with others who seem to have more money, more influence, more friends or more success (hence the jealousy etc). It's often hard to be thankful for what we have rather than unsettled by what we haven't got.
Perhaps one of the secrets of this sort of contentment is to focus on pleasing God, not on pleasing ourselves. I love the line in the Methodist Covenant Prayer (part of an annual rededication to God) that says:
Christ has many services to be done . . . . in some we may please Christ and please ourselves; in others we cannot please Christ except by denying ourselves.
Whichever way life turns out in this regard, simplicity is found in pleasing Christ - easy to say, much harder to do.
One might also say:
Sometimes we may please Christ and please our fellow Christians, other times we can only please Christ by ignoring the demands of fellow Christians.
No wonder its hard too make life simple.
Bible Passage to meditate on: Hebrews 12:1-3
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