Intentional Living

Many people find the word ‘simplicity’ a turn off, mainly because there may be a push for ‘less stuff’ or ‘do less.’ However, that is not my focus. Those may be the result of the simplicity I propose, but it is not my thought at all.

God has provided

God led the Israelites into a land of milk and honey, into a land of promise. It seems to me that he intends for us to enjoy what he has provided. The key is to enjoy without things distracting us or destroying our focus. The Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21) does a good job of illustrating this by looking deeper. Verse 12 in particular says, ‘I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.’

Choices We Make

You see, what we may miss with a quick reading is that the man already had barns. He was already enjoying the abundance that God had provided. He was, in this harvest, taken over by the need to do for himself. He reacted to the abundant harvest in the wrong way. He reacted by thinking of self and not God first.

There was nothing apparently wrong with the storehouses, or with prudently providing for self, family, dependents, etc. The ‘wrong’, the sin, that is pointed out in this parable is that he did not look to God for what to do with the harvest. We need to intentionally choose to focus on Jesus and let Him take care of the rest, not lean on ourselves. We need to intentionally choose to live according to how Jesus calls us to live and not react to our circumstances. Intentional living rather than reaction will lead us closer to God.