Time to be simple

I have a new and I think very important goal.  I'm going to simplify my life.  I have started going through boxes in anticipation of moving.  I have a lot of stuff.  Stuff I don't use.  I think I don' t have more stuff than the average American, but it makes me stressed none the less.  It's not only the amount of stuff I actually have, it's this feeling that I've bought into American consumerism.  I have this need to have more stuff.  I dislike the feeling, but it's there none-the-less.  I see other people with their nice homes, with sinks in the kitchen and a couch that their husband doesn't hate and I'm jealous.  I'm jealous that their house doesn't have the smell of sewage randomly wafting through.  I'm jealous that they get to buy new clothes, and they can buy clothes that only match one thing in their wardrobe.  Because they don't care if it sits in their fancy closet for months never worn.  Why do I think I need that?  I want to live in a hut in Africa for goodness sake!  I wouldn't even have a closet, and IF I have different clothes for every day of the week it would make me stand out as wealthy.

I think this is why I have a love-hate relationship with the city.  I LIKE that there is so much to do and so many different types of people.  Where I grew up the only "diversity" we had was one black family that moved into our town in my junior or senior year (I grew up in a really little town in the Midwest), and a couple of kids from Africa that had been adopted into white families.  Some of our teachers tried to teach us about different ethnicities and how we should respect them, but seriously they couldn't get far.  I LIKE that this diversity has allowed people in the city to experience all types of new activities, foods, languages, clothes, humor.  I DON'T LIKE that everything in a city is trying to get me to buy things.  Boston I think is less like this than other cities because it's so old that there isn't as much space for billboards.  However I can't ride the T without someone trying to get me to buy a beer, join a medical study, and buy an iPod.  

I've realized that the main reason why I get so upset with this western mindset of more stuff and more privacy and more advertising is that my heart hasn't bought in yet but the rest of me has.  So my new plan is to simplify my life.  I'll probably blog about it a lot.  Hopefully with progress, but probably sometimes with frustration.  The de-cluttering should be so bad, I'm pretty good at that.  It's going to be more the ongoing process of simplifying and staying that way.  So I'm off to go through another box and hopefully throw it all away.

I am taking this theory from this verse that God has pointed out to me recently:

Matthew 6:25-26  If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion.  There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body.  Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God.  And you count far more to him than birds.

I'm not supposed to be worrying about my stuff, I'm only supposed to be living for God, "living a life of God-worship."  God knows the stuff and he cares about the stuff.  And if he's looking after it then why do I think I have to look over  his shoulder?  Also I think the point is not only that he will give us stuff, but also that we don't need the stuff he doesn't give us.