Permanent Markers: A Hands-on Family Devotional of Spiritual Life SkillsSample

Simplicity: When Less Is So Much More

Play:

Bring out a large bin or trash bag. Set a timer for five minutes. Can your family fill it with things they’re willing to donate?

Talk It Out:

What if for dinner, we set out a bowl of cheese puffs? What would it be like eating them? What about an hour later?

Eating cheese puffs can be pretty satisfying when you’re doing it. But it fills you up so you don’t want food that feeds a healthy body. You might feel a little sick.

Simplicity is like choosing not to eat cheese puffs for dinner.

Simpler lives get rid of extra items we don’t need, even in our schedules. It can mean decreasing what doesn’t make our souls healthier: social media, video or computer games, time on our phones, or TV shows or movies that make it harder to follow God and find what really feeds our souls.

Ever try to find shoes or a homework assignment in a messy room? Creating simpler lives is like “cleaning the room,” getting rid of things that keep us from finding God easily (see Hebrews 12:1).

Simplicity might feel weird or totally not fun! It’s like a workout after months of sitting on the couch. You’ll feel good soon, but for a while, it’s hard to start. Because our culture tells us more stuff or more activities make us happier or more comfortable.

But really? Those things can leave us not rested or listening to God, less creative or connected to other people. Ugh. Like too many cheese puffs.

Where do you see messages telling you a life with another item, activity, or achievement will make your life better?

(Advertisements, social media, school, friends…)

Which of those might be right—and which might be wrong?

Pick a few ideas you could try this week:

● Pick something to give up (for a period of time) that might be a little hard: meat, social media, makeup, TV, buying something for yourself, complaining—or sugar, snacks, or dessert one day a week.

● Fill an entire trash bag of things to donate from your room or closet.

● Turn off the TV or music in the car, during meals, or while milling around the house. Plan what TV shows you’ll watch; turn off the TV the rest of the time.

● What’s one activity this week/month you could give up for a more relaxed schedule?