Quick announcement before we dive in: my Blaze fundraiser is TODAY! Come on over to the Blaze at Drexel from 5-9pm and show my flyer when you buy your pizza so part of the proceeds go towards my fundraising! Gracias!
Today, I want to talk to you all about minimalism. You may or may not have heard of it, but minimalism has been a very trendy topic ever since the release of Netflix documentary The Minimalists and since people realized how satisfying it is to watch people throw out their stuff on YouTube. But what is minimalism? The Minimalists describe it as “a tool that can assist you in finding freedom”. Essentially, their concept of minimalism is that the less stuff you have, the more space you have in your mind and the more you can live your life in a happy, peaceful way.
When I first heard about minimalism, I was infatuated. It’s great for the environment through reducing waste and I love the idea of simplifying your choices by having less to choose from. I immediately went through my entire apartment and got rid of everything I felt was unneeded. I cut my closet down by two-thirds, went through my excessive mug collection and my stacks and stacks of books. Some people might balk their heads at this and cling to the sentimentality of these items, but I believe we put a bit too much value on a lot of the things we own. We will still have the memories from whatever those things represented, but what are you really going to do with the half-broken wooden sunflower you bought in a Nicaraguan market? And are you really going to re-read the Gossip Girl novels you’ve had since middle school? My mentality as I purged my home of all this excess is that someone else could get more use out of these things than me. I don’t need thirty mugs for just me, or enough clothes to last me months without doing laundry, or so many books just collecting dust after being read once and never opened again.
And you know what? It did feel freeing. But it also made me think about how far-reaching a minimalist mindset can be. There’s digital minimalism, where you keep your desktop clean and your email at “inbox zero” so there is a streamlined way to operate efficiently within your devices. There’s the waste-free movement, which minimizes one’s use of single-use plastics and other disposables to have a positive impact on the environment. There’s veganism and cruelty-free shopping, which minimizes the amount of abuse to animals, people and the environment through the things you choose to consume. And then there’s your relationship with God.
I believe God is a minimalist. Bear with me on this one, now, and let me explain. I mean, there is the obvious fact that Jesus was literally homeless and had basically no possessions. (minimalist GOALS, amirite??) I was listening to a message and the pastor spoke about how God says simple phrases, and this is because following Him is simple. We just have this habit of adding clutter on top of our relationship with God.
I must do this first in order to follow God
I have to meet this expectation to qualify for the calling He’s given me
Maybe God will love me more if I were serving in this way
God smiles at us and says:
Abide in me and I’ll abide in you
Ask in faith and you will receive
Set your mind on Me
Just let Me do it. It’s that simple. Put all that clutter down and let Me wrap My arms around you.
Imagine if we approached our relationship with God like a minimalist? What if we decided to minimize our schedules so we had more time to spend with God? What if we got rid of our excess of possessions and gave them to the poor and needy? Minimalism is a tool for obtaining freedom, but we Christians know that true freedom can only come from Christ, so what if we walked through minimalism with Holy Spirit guiding us on every step? What if we spent less money on shopping and more time on investing in the Kingdom? We won’t take any of this stuff with us when we go to heaven, so why build it up now? There really is a sweet freedom to being rid of the worldly possessions that tie us down in order to draw closer to our Lord! It’s so easy to get distracted by every enticing thing the world offers, but maybe if we had a few less things, it would be easier to direct our eyes away from that and towards our Heavenly Father.
grace + peace
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