"Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised." ~ Proverbs 31:30

Thursday, April 18, 2013

The Simple Life is Not for Me

I don't believe in frettin' and grievin'
Why mess around with strife
I never was cut out to step and strut out
Give me the simple life

I'm not gonna lie, I have huge dreams of living quite the simple life.  I long to get married, have kids, and make home the place my family wants to be.  I don't need to get involved in politics and I certainly don't need to waste my energy fighting for causes that may never be won this side of heaven.

But you're called to be a fighter

It was just a few days ago that while I was dreaming of living the simple life, God seemed to say, "You're a fighter.  You were made to fight for my kingdom.  While peaceful sunny days spent sitting on your back porch with your children playing around you and an ice cold lemonade within arm's reach seems like paradise, you're not in paradise yet."

Rats.

In one fell swoop, my dreams and aspirations of living where the green grass grows disappeared into thin air.

A cottage small is all I'm after
Not one that's spacious and wide
A house that rings with joy and laughter
And the ones you love inside

I realized that as a Christian, I am called to put on my armor and prepare to do battle.  That thought hit hardest when news of the Gosnell murders came to my attention.  This is a sad, pitiful, fallen world, yet I am called to fight with everything I have in me.

I don't desire to expend my energies fighting, yet it is becoming more and more clear that that is precisely what I am supposed to do.

Perhaps you think this should be a blaringly obvious call for the Christian, and perhaps it is, but there's that part of me that lives in denial.  It's a struggle to get down on my knees and fight for the kingdom.  It's a struggle being intentional about learning as much as I can so I can fight as best I can.  It's a struggle figuring out the nitty gritty details of what I believe and then fighting for them.  It's a struggle.

The thing is that Christians aren't called to the simple life.  Romans 5:3-5 says, "More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

As Christians, there should be a constant struggle.  There should be something that requires endurance.  There should be something to fight for.

It is for the very fact that I am a Christian that I need to get involved in politics.  I need to fight for causes that may not be won this side of heaven.  I need to be informed and know what's going on.  I need to take a stand and fight!

While I wish with all my heart I could simply make a home for myself, dig around in the garden, read on the back porch, lay on my back and star gaze every night, I know that those sorts of things can't compose the whole of my life. 

Not yet.  There's so much work to be done!

The voiceless need someone to stand up for them
There are people who need a shoulder to cry on
There are people who need to hear God's truth

Here's the most important underlying issue of all our battles: because we live in a world that thumbs its nose at God, there are many, many people who need to be taught how to fear the Lord!

The simple life.  Not for me.  Not right now.

Now is the time to fight.