I look at my home echoing pieces of me with robin’s egg blue decor scattered throughout along with my husband’s passion, instruments galore, music radiating our hallways and walls followed with hand-me down furniture and kitchen items that were freely given from friends and loved ones, evidence of heaven-kissed provision.
Our home is full not just with sentimental items that have followed my husband and me from when we moved into our first apartment in Anaheim, but our home is full of simplicity and security. Any time finances would get tough or scarce, my husband would kindly remind me to simply remember. Remember God’s goodness. Remember when God pulled through the last time, every time.
Just like the Israelites in the Old Testament, we are master “forgetters”.
We tend to forget the sweetness of the fruit that was provided in dry and tough seasons, God’s miracles that came at the right place and the right time. The act of remembering, those milestones, is important to continue living a life of hope and maintaining the courage to be a risk-taker whether that is being willing to give freely without strings attached, offering a sum of your savings to help loved ones, to offer whatever is in your pantry and fridge to cook up a meal to feed a friend, to tithe even when that extra money would cover a utility.
When we choose to forget (and, yes I believe it is a choice), we increase the shock value of tragedy, tough seasons, or chaos. When we forget, it heightens anxiety because we lose perspective. We lose that strength that comes from the fact that someone greater, someone more powerful is working on our behalf and is a trusty advocate for our personal safety and security.
Richard J. Foster, the author of The Celebration of Discipline, says it plainly:
“Freedom from anxiety is characterized by three inner attitudes. If what we have we receive as a gift, and if what we have is to be cared for by God, and if what we have is available to others, then we will possess freedom from anxiety. This is the inward reality of simplicity. However, if what we have we believe we have gotten, and if what we have we believe we must hold onto, and if what we have is not available to others, then we will live in anxiety.”
The act of remembering gives God due honor and gives our soul its due oxygen to continue breathing, to continue believing in a God that works in the miraculous at the right time and right place. Remembering allows us to take greater steps of faith, makes us more bold to take risks with ourselves, others, and with God.
Foster shares the first inner attitude of simplicity:
“To receive what we have as a gift from God is the first inner attitude of simplicity. We work but we know that it is not our work that gives us what we have. We live by grace even when it comes to “daily bread.” We are dependent upon God for the simplest elements of life: air, water, sun. What we have is not the result of our labor, but of the gracious care of God. When we are tempted to think that what we own is the result of our personal efforts, it takes only a little drought or a small accident to show us once again how utterly dependent we are for everything.”
He continues with the second inner attitude:
“To know that it is God’s business, and not ours, to care for what we have is the second inner attitude of simplicity. God is able to protect what we possess. We can trust him. Does that mean that we should never take the keys out of the car or lock the door? Of course not. But we know that the lock on the door is not what protects the house. It is only common sense to take normal precautions, but if we believe that precaution itself protects us and our goods, we will be riddled with anxiety. There simply is no such thing as “burglar proof” precaution. Obviously, these matters are not restricted to possessions but include such things as our reputation and our employment. Simplicity means the freedom to trust God for these (and all) things.”
Foster concludes with the final inner attitude:
“To have our goods available to others marks the third inner attitude of simplicity. If our goods are not available to the community when it is clearly right and good, then they are stolen goods. The reason we find such an idea so difficult is our fear of the future. We cling to our possessions rather than sharing them because we are anxious about tomorrow. But if we truly believe that God is who Jesus says he is, then we do not need to be afraid. When we come to see God as the almighty Creator and our loving Father, we can share because we know that he will care for us. If someone is in need, we are free to help them. Again, ordinary common sense will define the parameters of our sharing and save us from foolishness. When we are seeking first the kingdom of God, these three attitudes will characterize our lives. Taken together they define what Jesus means by “do not be anxious.”
Foster’s words mean a lot to me especially in such an exciting and exhilarating season of promotion with me becoming Vice Principal at the school I work for. It could become so easy for me to think that I made this promotion happen for myself, but it is all glory to the One that put the very breath in my lungs, that created the very essence of my personality, that supplied the grit in my work ethic.
To say it plainly, all I receive from God is a gift, and this gift is something that I know my God can be fully trusted to look after, and this gift He gave me is boundless just like the One I serve, and boundless gifts can be shared.
Foster’s final words concludes with a reference to this verse:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
“They [the three inner attitudes] comprise the inner reality of Christian simplicity. And we can be certain that when we live this way the “all these things” that are necessary to carry on human life adequately will be ours as well.”
I encourage you to remember the good times, the goodness of God, the exchange of love, miracles, positive seasons and rest in the security and simplicity that life is NOT all bad, NOT all a give, NOT a “taker”, but life is as good as our Creator who desires to be our “enough”, to be our “provision”, to be our “exceedingly and abundantly”.