Lynyrd Skynyrd said it best:
“Be a simple kind of man. Be something you love and understand.”
A few months ago these lyrics came to my mind as God taught me a lesson in simplicity…
When you think about Nepal, you probably imagine Mt. Everest and the rest of the massive, snowy Himalayan mountains. This is what I envisioned my surroundings to look like as we entered the country. Then we arrived at Ulibari… a flat, hot, rural farming town 15 hours southeast of Katmandu. I’m not complaining though. It is impossible to escape God’s beauty in Nepal both in the landscape and the people. It seemed to me like we were in the middle of nowhere, but my understanding of the word rural was about to change.
After just a few days in Ulibari we filled our big packs with our tents and enough clothes for a week and set out on an adventure. We were heading to the village where our contact for the month was from. We took another bus about an hour outside of our small farming town to a village. This wasn’t our village though. Here we strapped on our packs and weighted across a waist deep river that was about 30-40 yards wide. This was just the first of the 13 river crossings we would make over the next 5 miles. The 15 of us hiked four hours up the valley that finally brought us to the house that our contact grew up in.
No roads, no electricity, no clean water. Never in my life have I been even close to somewhere so remote. I pitched my tent on the edge of a bluff overlooking the river that we had forged to get up here and that was my home for the week. Our water was boiled and meals cooked over the open fire. The only electronic I brought was a flashlight. The next few days were some of my favorite on the Race. Why? Life was SIMPLE.This week of peace made me realize how crowded my life is at home. As Americans we have all these tools and technology that are made to make our lives easier. Smartphones, cars, televisions… The ironic thing is that these things that are invented to make our lives “simpler” is what really makes them so complicated.
Here in the middle of nowhere Nepal, we realized how peaceful life can be when we set aside technology and worldly comfort.
I believe the same could be said about Christianity. People tend to look at Christianity as this series of rules and guidelines to follow:
To be a Christian, you can’t these things…
To be a Christian you have to do these things…
To be a Christian your life has to look like this…
To be a Christian you have to be like him or her…
All these rules and guidelines are to help us “be a better Christian.” Ironically, that’s not what Jesus taught.
In the gospels there are these guys named the Pharasiees. The Pharasiees were the religious leaders in Israel. They were the guys making all those stupid rules and guidelines I listed above. The Bible makes it pretty clear… the Pharasiees sucked.
So one day the Pharasiees were trying to manipulate Jesus and asked the question, “Which is the greatest commandment?”
Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
But Jesus didn’t just answer their question. He even threw in a little bonus. “and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.” – Matthew 22:34-40
“ALL the law”!
That’s it. Jesus summed up what it means to be a Christian in two statements. Love God. Love others.
Why do we insist on making being a follower of Jesus this big formula?
Don’t think that you’re not a “good Christian” because you don’t have it all figure out or put together. I’ll share something embarrassing with you. Before I left for the Race I thought by month 9 I would have my life all together. Ha. Yea right. That was foolish and prideful of me to think. I’m still a human. I still fall short ever day. I can’t live up to those rules and guidelines that the world tells me I have to follow to be a Christian… but that’s the beautiful thing about following Jesus is that we don’t have to.
As we worshiped in a village that seemed to be tucked into the furthest corner of the Earth, I sang praises to God in the form of a Lynyrd Skynyrd song and that week he taught me a lesson on simplicity that I’ll never forget.
Love God. Love others. Lets be simple Christians.
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law” –Romans 13:8
Also, here is a video my squad mate Daphnee made that sums up our month in Nepal! Thanks for the continuous prayer and support! I’ll be home is less than 2 weeks!!
Month 8- We Marching On (Nepal’s Video) from Daphnee on Vimeo.
