More Lessons from God - The Simple Life

My pastor seems to be preaching to me! He has started a series (*link to series of sermons) of preaching thats based on Psalm 46:10 Be Still and know that I AM God.

Be... Still and know that "I" am God.

This sunday my pastor asked us to take a moment and think of the things in my life that get in the way of my relationship with God. (stuff, events, things). Here is my list.

1. My own thoughts.
2. Television
3. Unwisely used Computer time (addicted to griddlers, need to figure that one out!!)
4. Shopping at Walmart
5. Volunteering way to much (MOPS, PTO, Girl Scouts)
6. Clothes
7. Coffee (do i really need to go buy coffee before every bible study? Waste of time)
8. Books
9. Shampoos (im addicted to buying them all, i love shampoo)
10. Foods: cookies, candies (Though my lesson is now certainly learned as i now have celiac disease and can no longer enjoy those)

So.. im thinking... how do I simplify? How do I change all these things to not be an obstruction to my relationship, but maybe to be a indicator of my relationship with God...

Here is what I learned:
1 - Have a Heavenly vision. What? Okay, I need to change my eyes and how i see things and see beyond myself. Okay, Now I need to think.... Volunteering, How does Girl Scouts help strengthen my relationship with God? Well I'm reaching out to girls who need a good role model. Am i a good role model to them though when I strain myself trying to do everything else? PTO, do I really need to be the only box top mom? No, I should either get help, or reconsider.

2. Simplify my calendar - Remove the clutter, stuff that is not redeeming. Okay, no PTO! LOL, I am overbooked, running here, running there. Randy comes home on the weekends and all we do is run errands. I spent a moment really thinking about all those "errands" and realized that 3/4 of them were totally unneccessary!! God is a God of Detours, I need to open up space in my life to allow Him room to move in it.

3. Simplify my stuff - okay, thats easy, spring cleaning time!!! But more than that, Pastor Eric said " Memories are more valuable than stuff" WOW. That instantly got me thinking of that WII, or the new Jeep in our driveway. What could we be doing with our family, creating memories if we spent more wisely? Could we take a trip to the sand dunes (been waiting 5 years for that one)? The pastor gave some great points... I just had to write down:

• a) shun anything that distracts your heavenly vision.
• b) buy only what you need)
• c) consider borrowing (not credit!! no... rather than buying a snow blower, see if your neighbor will let you borrow it... and you let them borrow your leaf blower, all parties are happy)
• d) reject anything that causes an addiction (wow... theres where that coffee comes in!)
• e) reject the gagetry of the modern age (that unnecessary claim of having big tv's, new phones etc)
• f) give it away. (yup, spring cleaning time! but not just for garage sales, donate....)

4. Simplify my relationships - Now, this one I said WHOA! Im going to be closer to God by not having relationships with others? Thankfully the pastor cleared my head up. "its not about quantity, but about quality" Suround myself with relationships that can help me build my relationship with God.

So... What things are getting in the way of YOUR relationship? Can we simplify more so that we can just BE? Im certainly giving it a try...