EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer of this article, Josh Havens, lives in the Springfield, MO area with his wife and three sons. His passion for discipleship, coaching, and solving puzzles keeps him engaged in deep conversations. Learning to walk in God’s grace is his greatest joy and challenge. He’s a software developer by vocation, leading a team that currently develops educational software services for several government departments of education around the world as well as several seminaries.
We are excellent gods.
Or so we think.
We deem ourselves responsible for every decision we make, capable of managing our existence and determining our future.
Can you feel it? Can you feel the weight of what this responsibility means for you as a person, a pastor, a spouse, a parent?
As I approach the last few years of my 30s, I find myself recognizing the finitude of life. The dreams from 20 years ago are now either lying in a corner somewhere or have been so drastically altered by God’s beautifully sovereign plan that they’re unrecognizable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Yet, I find that, as I look back, some of my vigor has been diminished by living life.
I think most experience this in one way or another. Our days begin with a strict, though imperfect, routine.
There are prayers to pray, Scripture passages to read, meals to eat, distances to travel, phone calls to make, work conversations to have, children to care for, spouses to love, sermons to write, budgets to balance, lawns to be mow, appliances to buy, exercises to endure… and the list… never… ends.
And these are merely the common, everyday demands on our time and attention, to say nothing about the crisis moments that bombard us (especially when global communication and news are so readily available).
On top of that, there are dozens of influencers offering conflicting tips and tricks on how to maximize your performance in each of these responsibilities. The weight of responsibility, independence, and freedom seems to be especially heavy since the pandemic.
Raising three sons with my wife, loving her the way she deserves, and working at my job to create software platforms for education, evangelism, and discipleship requires a lot. Each of my sons’ unique personalities leads them to learn and know God differently. Each new feature we develop in the software creates new opportunities for people to learn and grow.
In the end, I find the noise and culture around me leave me constantly asking the question, “Am I doing all of this right?”
I feel that if I can simply figure out the best way to navigate all the decisions, I can finally have the sense of accomplishment I crave. I’ll have the time to write that book a certain pastoral coach keeps encouraging me to write. I’ll finally be like the rest of you reading this who have attained what I can only dream of attaining, a simple life.
Of course, all these thoughts are false in some way. Navigating complex decisions will never end, and any sense of accomplishment from conquering all decisions always proves hollow. There will never be a time better than the present to write. And likely as not, you, my reader, ask yourself the same questions I do every day: “Is this the right way or the best way to love my wife? Am I messing up my kids? Am I leading and serving people the best way possible?”
Life is far from simple. This frenetic and uncertain way of life can’t be what Jesus meant when He talked about an easy yoke and light burden.
So, what can we do to live a simple life? Perhaps we could schedule rest and block out time in our calendar. Or maybe we could just do less. We could limit our calendar to one event per day, five per week max. Maybe we could set up the perfect organization tool to manage everything.
Each of these potential solutions has its place. But more responsibilities will come. To help alleviate some of this burden, I recommend two books: 1) Margin by Richard Swenson, and 2) Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. These provide healthy approaches to reducing unnecessary stressors in life and living within created limits.
However, both books and the solutions above provide structural solutions to a supposed structural problem. I propose that what we have in this chaotic, noisy, overly burdened world is a spiritual problem.
We need a spiritual solution, not a structural one, if we are to find a peaceful, simple life.
Understanding the Root Causes of Our Symptoms
Before we explore a spiritual solution, we need to better understand the nature of the problem and its complexities. We’ll begin with a few potential causes of the symptoms we know all too well: fatigue, stress, and burnout. These symptoms may or may not be caused by our spiritual problem.
1. God is growing us
At times, we may experience stress and fatigue because God calls us into pain and suffering. He does so because He wants us to grow.
In 2013, I was working at Sunstream Retreat Center in Ogden, IA. We offered low-ropes team building exercises as well as zip-line tours. The first platform of the zipline tour looked out over a 150-foot drop. Before the tour began, we explained to the riders what was about to happen. It was always fascinating to watch the most self-confident riders suddenly lose all composure when they stepped up to the edge. This was an opportunity to grow.
Imagine three concentric circles. The innermost circle is labeled “Comfort.” The outermost circle is labeled “Panic.” And between them is a circle labeled “Stretch.” The edge of a 150-foot drop for some caused sheer panic. For others, it was only a stretch. The panicked riders rarely conquered their fear. It was a complete and total shutdown. For those who were only stretched, they often conquered their fears and grew stronger as a result.
God calls us to pain and suffering at times for the same reason. Pain and suffering can stretch us and produce growth. Burnout and shutdown do not. We enter survival mode at best and suicidal depression at worst.
If you’re experiencing pain and suffering, don’t rule out God’s call to grow. At the same time, in this state, beware of moving from the stretch zone into the panic zone. It can be subtle.
2. We give too much out of zeal
In our appetite for serving God and those around us (a noble calling), we can become overzealous and give more than is healthy.
In the heat of the moment and because it’s a calling from God, it’s easy to miss that we’ve over-extended ourselves. It’s like overeating sweets. Our bodies get a dopamine kick from eating sugar. Without control, it’s easier to listen to that dopamine kick and continue to the next bite than it is to stop and listen to the signal from our guts telling us to stop.
Giving is great, but let’s do the math. Six hours a day, year after year, adds up to over 60,000 hours over a lifetime. 12 hours a day sounds impressive, but if I burn out in five years, that’s only about 20,000 hours. In the end, healthy giving gives more.
As parents we struggle with this in the way we love our children. It’s easy to give so much because we love so much.
Zeal is a great motivator, but there are times it must be held in check. Our God-given zeal can’t outpace our God-given life.
3. We become obsessed with outcomes
In the game Minecraft, players often spend hours mining for diamonds used to make tools and armor. The Minecraft world is built from 1-meter by 1-meter blocks of various materials. So as players mine one block, more blocks are revealed. After hours of mining, it’s tempting to think, “If I stop now, I’ll miss the diamonds behind this block.”
In ministry, fatigue and burnout can be the result of obsessively “mining for diamonds,” especially when God has promised provision, abundance, and success when we follow him. If we aren’t careful, greed and an obsession with the outcomes can cause pain and suffering that often gets labeled as “suffering for the kingdom.”
It starts with, “If I just spend more time visiting people, my church will grow.” Or “If I just steward a little better, God will give us what we need.” If I just do this. If I just give a little more. If I just…
Do you see the shift in focus away from God and onto self and outcomes? This shift and obsession with outcomes causes pain and suffering.
4. We believe pain is penance
When we spend time with Jesus, we become aware of how ugly we are compared to him. Charles Spurgeon once preached, “If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be.” We know our hearts and minds can be sinful and evil.
As a result, we may at times believe we deserve the pain and suffering we experience. Worse yet, we subconsciously look for more pain and suffering because in it we feel vindication and feel justice is being served. We can reach a point where we believe that if we experience enough pain, stress, and burnout, we may finally earn our simple life.
We dwell on our faults and serve others to our detriment because then, at least, we cannot be faulted for that. This is a false piety, a pseudo-asceticism that only produces more pain. We cannot self-inflict enough pain to reach a simple life.
5. We desire the praise of others
There is an excellent children’s book by Max Lucado titled You Are Special. The Wemmicks (carved wooden figures) spend their days sticking stars on those they think are talented or attractive and gray dots on those they consider clumsy or plain.
Punchinello, the main character, never seems to collect the stars he longs for—he trips, he fumbles, he just doesn’t measure up in their eyes. Every time he gets another gray dot, it weighs heavier on him. He starts to worry constantly about what others think, feels ashamed of himself, and lives under the stress of never being good enough.
This same experience plagues us in ministry. It’s quite easy to feel good about serving others. And we should feel this way. But there’s a subtle transition from enjoying our service to others and beginning to seek to get stars instead of dots. Some of us (myself included) thrive on these stars.
We begin to believe our outer world defines our worth. If the sermon was bad, I am a worthless preacher. If my house is a mess, I am a terrible parent. If I don’t keep everyone happy, I’m not loving them well.
It’s an addictive cycle that again leaves us a hollow shell. We’ve found no real purpose in life and have instead established a façade purpose of serving others, while our true purpose is to get one more star. It can be difficult to tell when we’ve made this transition.
Understanding Our Spiritual Problem
In all but the first cause mentioned above, there has been a subtle shift from healthy to unhealthy that time exacerbates. It’s a gradual shift rather than a dramatic one. There are rarely decisive moments in our physical health, for example, where we go from physically fit one day to unhealthy the next.
Our work begins in a healthy way and from a noble heart. We work hard because we feel called to the church we serve. We provide for our families because we love them. We give because Jesus gave. We love because He first loved us. But the gradual changes that occur over time may keep us ignorant that any change is happening at all.
This was the case for me in my physical health. Over the last year, I’ve been working hard to get healthy and fit. I wasn’t completely unhealthy, but I struggled with fatigue, high blood pressure, and general gut and stomach issues. I found that a proper diet and regular movement eliminated 90% of the issues. The most astounding realization was that I had forgotten what it felt like to feel good.
There are those of us in ministry who spend so much time feeling stressed, fatigued, and overwhelmed that we forget what an abundant life feels like. We redefine normal and even abundant life to fit our experience. In turn, we spread this definition subconsciously and even consciously to those under our care. And before we know what happened, we have a culture that believes the value of kingdom life lies in our zeal, the outcomes we produce, our penitential pain, and the praise of others.
This is the crux of our problem in the noisy and chaotic world of today. This is also why the problem is a spiritual one rather than a structural one. We have, over time, made small decisions in our hearts and minds that have shifted our perspective and our motives away from Christ and onto our abilities.
It’s a shift from obedience to disobedience.
From trust in God to distrust.
From dependence on God to independence from God.
To carry on with our analogy of diagnosing physical illness, it would be simple to look at this diagnosis and say, “That’s not me. I depend on God. I trust God. I obey God.” But let me remind you that even Spirit-filled Peter desired the praise of others when he decided to avoid eating with Gentiles to appease the circumcision group (Gal. 2:11-13).
No disciple of Jesus is immune to these heart and mind decisions. Ministers and leaders are especially susceptible as we receive the most praise and criticism from others, are more aware of our flaws, and typically have more zeal.
Understanding the Antidote
Jesus came to give us an abundant life. His teaching provides the antidote in John 15: Abiding. The Church throughout history has also called this the practice of simplicity.
Defining the practice of simplicity is difficult. In his book, Freedom of Simplicity, Richard Foster notes, “You need not worry if you find it difficult to explain exactly what this virtue is. We could well say of simplicity what Thomas à Kempis said of compunction of heart, it is better to practice it than to know how to define it.”
The problem with a definition is that defining a thing, naming it, means we have in some way come to control it. If the heart of our spiritual problem is a shift toward independence from God to a place where we control our lives and are responsible for the outcomes, it’s tempting to clearly define the steps involved in the practice of simplicity as well.
As a recovering legalist and perfectionist, I know how strong this desire can be. If I can reduce the practice to steps 1, 2, and 3, then it becomes a simple matter of learning to execute until I perfect those steps. Then, BAM! (cue Emeril Lagasse impression), I have a simple life.
So, in defiance of Richard Foster, I offer this definition: The practice of simplicity is anything that restores your dependence upon, trust in, and obedience to God. In that sense, it can be almost any practice (which is, in the end, not a definition).
Richard Foster went on to write:
“At times simplicity seems as elusive as humility: the moment we think we have it, we have lost it. It seems fraught with hidden crevices and box canyons—how can we ever expect to pick our way through these perplexing catacombs? If in a small way this describes your feelings and fears and even frustrations, I would like to bring you a word of encouragement. The very sense of awe you feel at the immensity of the task is the first requirement for entering the grace of simplicity. Those who come bolting in discover not simplicity but arrogance.”
In other words, if this sounds immense, good! God presents us with immense feelings to drive us back to dependence on Him. When the prospect of fixing our sinful nature becomes too immense, we go back to Him. When our calling and the noise of the world around us become too immense, we go back to Him.
The key to simplicity is a return to our connection with God. It’s why Jesus praised Mary and corrected Martha. It’s why He said, “Seek first the kingdom of God” (Matt. 6:33). It’s why the poor and downtrodden are closer to the kingdom than the rich and affluent. It’s a matter of dependence.
Those in life who recognize their utter dependence on God lead the simplest lives.
This is easier said than practiced. We can’t make the same mistake in solving this problem that we do in our churches and conferences. We can’t attack it with a plan to fulfill our vision for reaching 5,000 people by 2026. These are structural solutions. No, it will take daily obedience and trust that God is leading and orchestrating all things for your good (Rom. 8:28).
This runs counterintuitively to American culture and even our church culture. After all, if I stop worrying about outcomes and numbers, if I stop creating easy-to-follow programs, I will get fired, won’t I?
This underscores the severity and pervasiveness of our problem. It’s not an easy problem to solve, nor is it one that will be solved in a moment. Perhaps you will be fired. Perhaps you will have to make sacrifices.
But isn’t this the point? Your very survival instincts drive you to grasp at anything around you to save yourself. Take heart! God is drawing you back to dependence. This is where you will find abundant life!
Do you trust Him? Will you depend on Him? Will you desire Him and enjoy Him more than all these things? Do you believe He will take care of your family if you get fired or evicted? I recognize these are hard words, but remember what David said in Psalm 37: “I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging for bread.”
This antidote can be painful, but the noise, stress, and burnout our culture so readily accepts as normal are even more detrimental.
Principles Toward Practicing Simplicity
There are, I believe, three basic principles that will help us move toward simplicity. You’ve likely heard these before; they are not revolutionary. But when viewed through the lens of dependence vs. independence, trust vs. distrust, and obedience vs. disobedience, along with the causes of the symptoms we mentioned above, these principles take on new life and purpose.
1. Rest
Our tendencies as Americans rarely lead to too much rest. This applies to your soul and the state of your mind. You don’t have to figure out a solution to every problem of which you are aware. You don’t have to fix all your flaws immediately. You don’t have to perfect your spiritual disciplines today. Yes, deadlines do exist, and crises do arise. But our normal mode of existence should be rest.
Abide… stop being the branch on the vine trying to squeeze out fruit. Fruit doesn’t work like that. Rest… drink in the sustenance you can only receive from the vine itself. Drink deep and enjoy it. Fruit will come in its due season. This principle shifts us back toward dependence.
Martin Luther, in his lectures on Genesis, wrote, “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess… I work hard and then leave it in God’s hands, and then go to sleep.” There is nothing more we can do each day than to surrender our work to God, go to rest in sleep, and trust that by His design and grace we will actually wake up in the morning.
Won’t I lose it all when others do ministry better? Won’t my church fire me if I don’t do enough? Am I not supposed to be growing my ministry and being a good steward (turning 5 into 5 more)?
Brennan Manning responded this way: “If He wants it to, my life will be useful through my word and witness. If He wants it to, my life will bear fruit through prayer and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is His concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that” (The Ragamuffin Gospel).
2. Enjoyment
Slow down and enjoy the person you interact with, the view out your window, or the sounds you hear. You don’t have to make sure everyone likes you. You don’t have to be the most influential leader. You don’t have to push so hard because you feel a social or ministerial pressure to perform.
Instead, enjoy what God provides in the moment. Yes, there will be another item on the agenda, but focus on this moment here and now.
There’s a great scene in the movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood where a writer for a magazine is on the phone with Mr. Rogers. As the writer attempts to schedule an interview, Mr. Rogers responds, “You have me here right now. Do you know what the most important thing in the world is to me right now?… Talking on the telephone to [you].”
The practice of mindfulness and living in the moment produces a sense of gratitude, which in turn produces enjoyment. It’s a shift away from being the god of our calendar back toward the creature made in God’s image to, in John Piper’s words, “…glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”
Won’t my schedule fall apart if I do this? Won’t I become inept at leading and pastoring?
If God is God and we are not, and if we take Jesus seriously, then this is not only a preferable way to live, but THE way to live. Adopting this principle shifts us into a position of trust that He will take care of the next moment while we live in this one.
3. Rhythm
There will always be seasons of more work and seasons of less work. Pay close attention to the seasons. God always provides seasons and cycles to keep us healthy (Eccl. 3).
If we find ourselves in constant summer or constant winter, we need to re-evaluate our decisions, the requirements of our employers, and even the job itself.
Additionally, seasons and rhythms are given to keep us dependent and in a position of trust. When the children of Israel left Egypt, they needed food in the wilderness. God gave them a beautiful, tangible exercise in trust.
In providing manna and in commanding them not to gather more than the day’s needs (except for the sixth day), He gave them an exercise of dependence, trust, and obedience. The daily cycle required them to trust God for their literal daily bread.
We want so desperately to stockpile and plan so that, regardless of what comes next, we have control.
Planning isn’t bad, but when it moves us away from dependence, trust, and obedience, we’ve gone too far. It’s a weight we weren’t meant to carry.
I’ll add one comment here from a personal soapbox: We also desperately seek to bypass life’s rhythms and arrive at full maturity in our first year of growth. We think we need to arrive as a mature oak tree in ministry after a year or so of relentless effort.
Oak trees only become massive after a lifetime of growth. It will not happen any faster or any slower if you push more. Some things only grow with time. Be ok with that. Praise God for that! Enjoy that! Some trees grow quickly, but they are often weak and ill-prepared for storms compared to the slow-growing trees.
As much as we wanted to be tall at five years old, that only happened after years of growth. And how did we grow? We simply ate the food we needed every day. We went to sleep every night (well, mostly) trusting that we would wake up the next morning somehow. And somehow, when we were 15, we were taller.
10 years of life and growth take 10 years to experience. It’s a grace from God that we experience rhythms and cycles. Our appetites would kill us otherwise.
Final Thoughts
Simplicity is the antidote to our noisy, chaotic, burnt-out world.
This comes from the subtle shifts away from dependence, trust, and obedience slowly over time. To practice simplicity, we must shift back toward dependence, trust, and obedience over time.
We must live within the limits God so graciously has given us.
This is a daunting task. It runs counter to cultural norms. We can’t even do this task on our own or through our planning, as that would undermine its purpose.
I feel this struggle with you. The very responsibilities that should be gifts from God become heavy burdens when I carry them as if I were the one holding everything together. My own struggles remind me that the call to simplicity is not a recommendation, it is a call back to the only way to live. It is God’s gentle reminder that I was never meant to be an excellent god, only His dependent child.
So, if you’re experiencing symptoms and if you feel overwhelmed by life, take courage. As Foster noted, this positions you to receive from God exactly what you need that He alone can provide.
The implications of a simple life are profound. It may cause you to lose a job or face ridicule or disciplinary action. That’s not an easy pill to swallow.
If we are set on living the abundant life with an easy yoke and light burden, we must live a simple life, a life of complete dependence on God that is out of our control.
It’s only when we attempt to be a god, to be independent, that we find we are most vulnerable and stressed by the weight we choose to carry.
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