Living Simply: What's Weighing You Down?

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, 

let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." ~Hebrews 12:1

God has a call on each and every one of our lives.  Our time on this Earth has a specific purpose.  It's up to us to "lay aside" the things that weigh us down and keep us from fulfilling this purpose.

Our family is embarking on a prayerful journey to live a more simple life ~ shaving away all that is unnecessary in order to better fulfill the Call of God on our lives.

We invite you to take this journey with us and see what God has in store for you.  Look for our regular posts on Living Simply or subscribe here to make sure you don't miss a post.

What's Weighing You Down?
The first step in a journey to a more simple life is to identify the things that are most important to you.  What do you value the most? It's good to stay within a range of 4-5 things. These 4-5 things then become the focus of your journey - Your Priorities.

Once you've identified your priorities, you have to carefully take a look at your life as it currently is.  Evaluate everything that you spend your time on.  What do you do during the day from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep?  Here's an article that might help you get started.

The final step is to discerningly look at each thing you spend your time on and measure it against your priorities.  If it doesn't fall into one of the things you identified as a priority, then it has to go.

A Personal Example:
I spend a great deal of time and energy on toys - Putting them away, tripping over them, organizing them, breaking up fights over them, etc.  I do regularly clean out what we have but we are still left with too much.  I always justify it by saying that the toys we have are not junk.  Many of them were mine as a child or nice wooden toys or special gifts.  BUT, no toy is as special as more time to sit and read with one of my girls snuggled in my lap or more time with my husband at the end of the day.  SO, the girls and I went through all the things they have and together answered questions like: How much do we play with this? Is this a toy that takes up a lot of space or has tiny parts? Is this a toy that encourages cooperative play with others?  We kept the things that we could answer yes to and we are in the process of getting rid of the rest.