Do you have the strength to go without?
This question has been turning over in my brain for several weeks. It’s a question that was posed in something I read in December, which I’ll get to in a minute. It’s a question that’s forced me to answer some hard questions about how I live in this modern world of luxury.
And I want to drill that word into our brains momentarily: luxury.
Since my “reading,” My wife and I have had this thing where we randomly identify the luxury in our lives that we’re unaware of. A luxury we’re unaware of means something we take for granted, like a hot shower, for example. Anyone who’s traveled on a mission trip knows this.
I vividly remember a trip to Nepal with a small church team. I was so excited to take a shower after hiking to different villages for days in the mountains. There I stood, in what was the equivalent of a spare closet with a spigot, dancing beneath a very low hose sticking out of the wall, pouring ice-cold water down my back and head. We don’t know how good we have it!
Simple luxuries like this are the fabric of the developed world. We don’t think about hot showers, buying massive televisions, binge-watching shows, or overeating all the time, and the list goes on.
And I haven’t even touched on our consumption habits. We live in a society where our towns revolve around consumption centers.
“Oh, they’re putting in a new Home Goods center {fill in the blank with any box store}!” I’m not suggesting these stores are inherently bad; just observing that our culture revolves around consumer goods.
Our consumption has mushroomed so much recently that Marie Kondo, the bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (which I highly recommend!), has her own Netflix show. Her minimalist approach has breathed new life into people’s homes and helped them gain freedom over their “stuff.”
The Spiritual Minimalist
Minimalism is an interesting word.
It’s popular in design, for example. My friend Myquillyn Smith’s design brand is about “cozy minimalism” (another book I highly recommend!)
Minimalism is valued in the writing world as well. Ernest Hemingway comes to mind when I think of a writer who used a small economy of words to tell his stories.
But have we ever considered applying minimalism to our spiritual lives? I’m not suggesting a reduction of spiritual practices or anything like that. I’m riffing on the idea that a person can reduce distractions in her life that impede her communion with God.
Picture Jesus walking the road to Bethany with his disciples.
He has no home and no source of income that makes any sense to a modern person. He relies on God to provide and protect him. He moves about his work with great freedom.
He is like a walking lily of the field—to pull from one of the images Jesus liked to describe something that was carefree or stressless.
You look at Jesus, and there’s simplicity in his life that is alluring. He’s a living example of minimalism. We find the principles we love about minimalism in artistic expression expressed in the physical and spiritual life of Jesus.
Keep that image of Jesus walking with his disciples in your mind as you read through the next section.
That Thing I Read
So here’s what really hit me hard when I read it a few months ago.
The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (one of my favorite writers/thinkers) once observed the lowly lifestyle of Jesus.
Jesus did not bring attention to himself, and he did not attempt to lure the masses. He lived humbly as a servant. He did not benefit from earthly possessions, nor do we get the sense from Scripture that Jesus desired possessions during his ministry.
“He did not trouble himself with house or home,” writes Kierkegaard.
Jesus did not seek shelter, the love, or the romantic company of a woman, nor was he drawn to things that “usually claim the attention of men.”
He says it was a beautiful life, even romantic when you think about it. But then Kierkegaard asked something that got my attention: Is it appropriate?
“The question,” says Kierkegaard, “is whether a human being may venture to express the same idea.” Meaning, should we seek to be foot-loose wanderers?
I won’t keep you guessing. Kierkegaard answers this question: Yes.
I was beyond intrigued.
But there was a condition to his answer: A man or woman may so venture if he or she possesses the needed strength.
Strength? I thought. For what?
Here’s where it gets good. The strength to:
“lose himself in the service of the spirit that it never occurs to him to take care for meat and drink; if he is certain that want will not distract him, and that distress will not confound for him the structure of his life and teach him to rue that he did not first master the simple things before he presumed to understand more—then he may indeed venture, and his greatness will be more glorious than the serene security of the lilies of the field.”
This idea of possessing such strength to live “without” gripped me for days. I talked my wife’s ear off about it while considering whether or not I possessed the strength Kierkegaard described.
So, I created this short quiz in my mind and ruminated upon it with my wife while driving the PA Turnpike over the Christmas break:
What can I live without?
What pleasure(s) or luxuries distract me from spiritual intimacy with God?
Have my desires mastered me?
Am I willing to lose myself in the service of the spirit?
When was the last time I fasted to draw close to God?
I’m going to end here for now.
My challenge to you is: take the quiz. If you can get nitty-gritty-honest with yourself, I think you’ll find it beneficial.
And I’d love to hear your reflections. Send them along. Or, we can start a “Thread” here in the newsletter—it’s a cool option that allows us to meet up digitally and discuss topics, kind of like a comment thread but in real-time.
In the next installment of Further Up, I’ll share Seven Insights to Spiritual Minimalism I’m developing. And again, I’d love your feedback on them.
And Finally
The subtitle of this post is “Regaining Our Spiritual Grit.” As I reflected on whether or not I possessed the strength to grow deeper in my spiritual life, it occurred to me that I may have gotten soft spiritually.
When we’re on fire for God in those early years of our faith, everything is so new and fresh that we possess a kind of “edge” that helps us see the world for what it is and how it affects us. We begin to notice things about our lives that need to change.
But familiarity breeds contempt. It’s a sad reality that time and familiarity with “church culture” can deaden our spiritual grit and make us soft and flabby Jesus followers.
I’m excited to shed the flab. Some evidence of this is The Saturday Stoke. I designed this short podcast as a way for me to encourage and challenge you guys—my brothers and sisters in the faith. And it’s lit me up. I can’t wait to dig into the Word and my books for nuggets to spur us toward love and good deeds.
Let's get to it if you’re all in on shedding the spiritual flab. See you here again real soon!
Cheers,
Tim
No other comments? I came across this post via a link at the bottom of an email for your reading of Psalm XXXVII, sent out on 20 April. I have really enjoyed listening to those - nice job on the reading and the background music. This was a great post and very relevant to a concept that has been on my mind and heart for a while. I picked up the sport/hobby/what-have-you of dual-sport/adventure motorcycle riding a few years ago after moving to Colorado. I have attempted to make the most out of the least as far as equipment goes for my excursions, a goal of mine for a long time when it comes to the outdoors. Similarly, I have become more intrigued with minimalizing my thought pattern and information intake, relying more on the classics and the great thinkers/writers rather than the mental diarrhea plaguing the interwebs. Like you, I tend to pick up on the simple luxuries of our blessed life, and my wife and I will often point out our “first world problems” when something we’ve been taking for granted is no longer available. The consumerism running rampant in America and blasted into your face at every turn turns me off more and more every day. The insight provided by kierkegaard is great stuff and I’m looking forward to bringing this up for discussion with my wife and sitting on it for a while. A quote I’ve often heard and believe, in this fallen world, to be very true and, unfortunately, something we humans find ourselves in the perpetual cycle of: “Good times breed soft people. Soft people make for hard times. Hard times breed good people...”. Here’s to spiritual minimalism and a depth of intimacy with our father beyond our understanding.